So what is it about me, anyway??
Panurge
natch... :-/ I never get any signals, and sometimes when I think I am
I'm not. No one looks at me, even when I give them the opportunity.
(Well, occasionally they do, but they don't *seem* to be looking at me
*that* way IYKWIM.)
I know acting desperate won't help, but I am. I don't come here with my
problems, but here I am now, appealing to a group of people who don't
even know me well enough to answer my question. But I guess it can't
hurt to ask whoever I can.
Am I fated to have to give up my heart's desire to get companionship or
a music career or, hell, *anything* in life? How could a relationship
based on that be "real" in any way? Am I just gonna have to resign
myself to being my own boyfriend and running MIDI sequences?
I mean, I know there's some people for whom just nothing they want is
ever gonna happen, but this is just ridiculous. It can't *all* be the
world's fault. :-/ What's wrong with me??
--
"He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
--Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
TenshiKurai9
> Am I fated to have to give up my heart's desire to get companionship or
> a music career or, hell, *anything* in life? How could a relationship
> based on that be "real" in any way? Am I just gonna have to resign
> myself to being my own boyfriend and running MIDI sequences?
The most help I can be is to buy you a bachelor beer.
-TenshiKurai9
`una
> I know acting desperate won't help, but I am. I don't come here with my
> problems, but here I am now, appealing to a group of people who don't
> even know me well enough to answer my question. But I guess it can't
> hurt to ask whoever I can.
When you do things to take care of yourself (showering, eating, etc)
do you feel that you are doing a chore you resent or do you feel
taken care of?
When you are out in public, do your muscles feel loose and relaxed
or is there tension in your back, neck, and/or joints?
When you are alone do you enjoy the things you do by yourself
or do you spend your time wishing that you had someone to share
those activities with, not just a passing thought, but dwelling
on how it feels to not have somebody?
Yeah, this is basic self-help crap, but the point these questions
drive at is that your body language conveys all of the stuff you
don't tell yourself. You may think you like yourself well enough,
but when your body language is conveying desperation, people
aren't going to trust you enough to talk to you because desperate
people are unpredictable in a way that may be unsafe.
The best way to attract people is to get grounded before you
leave the house. Whether we are talking psychologically or
waving crystals around and talking about psychic energy, the
principle is the same. When you are comfortable in your own body,
your muscles are relaxed and your body language is more approachable.
When you look approachable, people are more likely to approach you.
Maybe you think you are protecting yourself from boring people by
having your guard up, but you are also protecting yourself from
anybody who might think you look interesting. Respectful people tend
to respect the fuck off vibe.
It's easier to drop the fuck off vibe and choose how to respond to people
after they approach you than it is to be surrounded by a preemptive
strike zone that nobody wants to enter. The fuck off vibe is a great
thing to have when you want to be left alone, but when you want to
find somebody you can connect with, it just gets in the way.
The best way to drop the fuck off vibe is the same as the best way to
ditch the desperation vibe. Get grounded and comfortable in your body.
That's a hard thing to do in our culture. Whether your issue is gender
or weight or any combination of a bunch of things, it's really hard
to get comfortable in skin you hate being in. It's worth the effort
even if the only benefit is that you stop feeling so much like crap.
Generally, the benefit is that the less you feel like crap, the more
likely people are to talk to you because your body language is more
relaxed and approachable. Ignore the people you don't want to talk to
and enjoy the company of the people you do want to talk to.
IF there is something wrong with you, it's most likely
your body language. There may not be anything wrong with you.
It might be that you are in a bad location. Maybe you are making
yourself available at the wrong activities and you need to try
new stuff. Sometimes, changing your routine and seeing new faces
in new places will open you up to possibilities you hadn't considered.
Seriously, the best way to attract people is to say hi to people.
Even if the person you are saying hi to isn't interested,
someone who IS interested might see you trying and realize
that you are approachable and decide to say hi.
Either way, simply by saying hi, you've opened the door to possibility.
The more doors you open, the more likely you are to find a room you like.
`una - if you were at C13 and are the person I think you are,
I have more specific feedback, but didn't want to presume.
Panurge
> Panurge wrote:
>
> > I know acting desperate won't help, but I am. I don't come here with my
> > problems, but here I am now, appealing to a group of people who don't
> > even know me well enough to answer my question. But I guess it can't
> > hurt to ask whoever I can.
>
> When you do things to take care of yourself (showering, eating, etc)
> do you feel that you are doing a chore you resent or do you feel
> taken care of?
The latter.
> When you are out in public, do your muscles feel loose and relaxed
> or is there tension in your back, neck, and/or joints?
Probably the latter, though not as badly as before (I think). I should
look into that.
> When you are alone do you enjoy the things you do by yourself
> or do you spend your time wishing that you had someone to share
> those activities with, not just a passing thought, but dwelling
> on how it feels to not have somebody?
Generally the former. I mean, I could share those things with a friend.
> When you look approachable, people are more likely to approach you.
True. People approach me on occasion, but generally in a "merely"
friendly way. (Or else they're not people I'm interested in fucking.)
Sometimes I think I might give off the fuck off vibe *once they approach
me*, because *why are these people approaching _me_*, y'know? That's
unfair to them, I know. I guess that's how I expect other people to
respond if I approach them--"what is this weirdo doing just coming up to
me out of the blue"?
> Maybe you think you are protecting yourself from boring people by
> having your guard up,
Probably. I've got plenty of experience in boring people, y'know.
Maybe I overreacted.
> but you are also protecting yourself from
> anybody who might think you look interesting.
Fair enough. I don't *think* I give off the fuck off vibe, but (as a
friend in the scene told me last night) I might be giving off a "not
looking" vibe (though I try to look around me in such a way as to give
everyone a chance to look back). How do you give off an "I'm looking"
vibe and not look desperate? I look at people I'm interested in, and I
figure if they look back it's a good sign, but no.
> It might be that you are in a bad location. Maybe you are making
> yourself available at the wrong activities and you need to try
> new stuff. Sometimes, changing your routine and seeing new faces
> in new places will open you up to possibilities you hadn't considered.
I can see that. I don't know what I'd change them *to*, and eventually
The Goff Thing would come up. I feel I need to let people know who and
what I am right out front so they're not unpleasantly surprised later.
I know--"excuses, excuses..."
> Seriously, the best way to attract people is to say hi to people.
> Even if the person you are saying hi to isn't interested,
> someone who IS interested might see you trying and realize
> that you are approachable and decide to say hi.
> Either way, simply by saying hi, you've opened the door to possibility.
> The more doors you open, the more likely you are to find a room you like.
That's what I tell myself. I said hello last night and nothing came of
it. Well, it was more than "hello", but if I say "hi" and they're not
interested, that's the end of it. I'd rather have at least a friendship
than nothing, but if I don't ask, it'll never be more than friendship.
> `una - if you were at C13 and are the person I think you are,
> I have more specific feedback, but didn't want to presume.
No, but I was at C14 in Tampa and met you there. I thought I introduced
myself.
I dread "more specific feedback", because I figure I know what it's
gonna be, namely good old "find a new skin", which is a helluva thing
for A GOFF to say, fer shur, and equates for me to "abandon your heart's
desire". I don't feel like crap--in fact, I remember a friend telling
me that the only time I ever seemed truly *happy* was when I was "all
out". *Terminally frustrated*, maybe.
Part of it is that I hate hearing "no". "What can they do but say no?"
Well, for me, that's bad enough. Maybe I should get over that.
Panurge
> I don't come here with my
> problems,
CORRECTION: I don't *come here with the intention of talking about my
problems*.
`una
> `una wrote:
> How do you give off an "I'm looking"
> vibe and not look desperate?
It's mostly a matter of comfort. If you look comfortable while you
are looking, then people feel comfortable looking back. If you look
uncomfortable, then it can come across as desperate or creepy or any
number of things that aren't usually inviting.
> I feel I need to let people know who and
> what I am right out front so they're not unpleasantly surprised later.
I used to strongly feel that way. Now, I'm a bit more mellow and
am finding that people approach me more easily. Sometimes, it's good
to give people a chance to find out if there's chemistry before
getting into the heavier stuff.
It's something I'm still exploring, so I offer it as a possibility to
look at, not as a piece of advice to consider. I don't know if it will
work for me, but I'm enjoying how much more relaxed I am and how much
more comfortable my conversations are. Generally by the time the heavy
stuff comes up, people have already decided they like me, so they aren't
terribly put off by what would have made them uncomfortable with me if
I had mentioned it upfront.
Maybe my earlier approach was a cart before the horse problem.
> I know--"excuses, excuses..."
You have a tendency to try to predict where people are going.
Figuring out what you need isn't about what anybody else might say.
> Well, it was more than "hello", but if I say "hi" and they're not
> interested, that's the end of it. I'd rather have at least a friendship
> than nothing, but if I don't ask, it'll never be more than friendship.
That kind of thinking tends to not be helpful.
I find that it's easier to get a feel for what kind of chemistry
I have with a person if things start off with the attitude that
we are looking to get a general feel for each other rather than
trying to get a feel for what kind of relationship we might develop.
If I'm aiming to have a friendship with someone I'm actually interested
in because friendship is better than nothing, then I come across as
disingenuous because I am obviously interested in more and just settling
for what I can get. That sends the signal that what I want doesn't matter
and that I'm more interested in the relationship than I am in the person.
I find that if I go in with the mindset that I am an interesting person
talking to someone who might be interesting, then our interest in each
other develops more organically and we get to find out together
how and if we fit and if we don't fit, it's no big deal to either of us
because there wasn't that expectation of any form of relationship.
Does that make sense? It's kind of abstract, which makes it tricky
to state in concrete terms.
> > `una - if you were at C13 and are the person I think you are,
> > I have more specific feedback, but didn't want to presume.
>
> No, but I was at C14 in Tampa and met you there. I thought I introduced
> myself.
Yes, you did. I had the year wrong. It was just a long time ago and
there was a lot going on that weekend.
> I dread "more specific feedback", because I figure I know what it's
> gonna be, namely good old "find a new skin", which is a helluva thing
> for A GOFF to say, fer shur, and equates for me to "abandon your heart's
> desire". I don't feel like crap--in fact, I remember a friend telling
> me that the only time I ever seemed truly *happy* was when I was "all
> out". *Terminally frustrated*, maybe.
Your mind reading abilities suck :)
My more specific feedback is just that your body language and your eyes
tend to give that mixed signal that's equal parts "please notice me"
and "please don't talk to me" so that it's difficult to tell what kind of
attention you are looking for.
What stands out in my memory is your posture, which was obviously aiming
for tall and confident, but coming off as bravado because your muscles
were taught in all of those ways that indicate that you are braced for
the worst rather than being comfortable in your own skin.
From reading your posts, it seems like you jump to the conclusions that
you think people are aiming at before they've had a chance to get there.
Knowing that and remembering your body language, it seems like maybe
you are protecting yourself from what you think people are thinking
without taking the time to talk to them and find out what they are
actually thinking.
It's an easy thing to do. Everybody does it to some degree.
It's only an issue when it prevents you from building the kinds of
relationships you would like to have.
Perhaps you could get closer to your heart's desire if you
gave people a chance to let you get to know them before assuming
you already know what they are about.
> Part of it is that I hate hearing "no". "What can they do but say no?"
> Well, for me, that's bad enough. Maybe I should get over that.
Instead of waiting for them to say "no", maybe it might help to
give them an opportunity to say "yes".
I've found that rejection is a lot easier to take when I don't assume
that it's about me. When I assumed everybody rejected me offhand because
I was fat, I had a hell of a time figuring out how to get them to like me
despite my fat. It was always about me and my fat.
I have since learned that I say no and other people say no for all kinds
of reasons that have NOTHING to do with the person being rejected.
Sometimes the chemistry is off or the timing is off or I'm tired or
I've got to catch a bus or my attention is elsewhere or ... any number
of reasons that I'm just not interested in that person at that time or
that person isn't interested in me at that time.
So, now "no" isn't about me or my fat or about trying to figure out
what's wrong with that other person. It's just "no". It isn't fun, but
it's no big deal because it isn't about me. It's just part of interacting
with a wide range of people. There are many people I don't mesh with
and it does me no good to worry about why I don't mesh with them.
It's best for me to continue to look for the people I do mesh with.
When I find them, it's awesome.
Mostly, I find people I mesh with when I'm genuinely interested in
hearing what they have to say and discover that they are genuinely
interested in what I have to say. So, I try to be somebody who
listens to what people are actually saying instead of assuming
their meaning all the time and find that I attract people who
listen to what I'm saying without assuming my meaning.
It's rare, but totally worth the effort.
`una - hoping that makes sense and is actually useful.
kest
>> When you look approachable, people are more likely to approach you.
>
> True. People approach me on occasion, but generally in a "merely"
> friendly way. (Or else they're not people I'm interested in fucking.)
>
Yeah, I'm not sure not being approachable is your problem....
I have some thoughts, although I'm not totally sure how to convey them,
as they are complicated and vague, but I will try anyway.
I think there's this classic geek social blunder of being all 'nobody
understands me!' and it has a lot of complicated effects. One is (and
this is a common humanity thing, not just a geek thing) ending up stuck
in one's head and expecting things to happen *to* you rather than
looking around and really *seeing* what is outside. With geeks and goths
especially it can include being paranoid about losing individuality and
uniqueness and distrustful of 'normal' - I know I have a hard time even
beginning to contemplate the mainstream sometimes - and that can block
off certain avenues of growth that may actually be beneficial.
When it comes to relationships, I think a *lot* of people (guys
especially) make the mistake of trying to 'be attractive' by shining up
what one thinks are one's best qualities, whereas what most people
actually find attractive is an interest in their own best qualities.
You tend to get back what you give out.
So, basically, stop talking, start listening. Pay attention to how
people react and what they desire. Compliment them. Smile at them.
*Care* about them. But in that authentic way, not in that 'trying to
get something out of it' way. Most of the time, nothing will come of it,
and that has to be ok...you are trying to give, rather than get. And
then when something does happen it will be a total miraculous surprise
that you totally deserve.
k
Panurge
> Panurge wrote:
>
> > `una wrote:
>
> > How do you give off an "I'm looking"
> > vibe and not look desperate?
>
> It's mostly a matter of comfort. If you look comfortable while you
> are looking, then people feel comfortable looking back.
Check.
> Generally by the time the heavy
> stuff comes up, people have already decided they like me, so they aren't
> terribly put off by what would have made them uncomfortable with me if
> I had mentioned it upfront.
Also "check". OTOH, I actually do a lot of that, too. Most people I
interact with now (unless they've known me for a very long time) don't
know I'm a fan of Arnold Schoenberg's music, but there was a time when
I'd bring Schoenberg up right off the bat if I was asked what I listened
to. I don't know if you've heard any of his stuff, but it's about the
least sexy music there is, at least after he punctured the balloon of
traditional Western tonality. So I don't bring him up anymore.
(You'll notice my quote from him is about another person's music, even.
But I put it there because it's *from Schoenberg*, not because it's
*about Gustav Mahler*.)
> You have a tendency to try to predict where people are going.
> Figuring out what you need isn't about what anybody else might say.
True. But figuring out what I can have has everything to do with it.
If you think I'm assuming I can't have what I need or really want,
you're right. After all this time, what other conclusion can I make?
There *might've* been people I could've done something with. And I let
them get away because I just wanted PERFECTION. Now it's all this time
later and the conditions are so much worse. OTOH, considering the
experiences I've had, they'd likely have said "no" back then, too. I
just can't imagine anymore that anyone would say "yes". I've never
really been able to imagine it.
> I find that it's easier to get a feel for what kind of chemistry
> I have with a person if things start off with the attitude that
> we are looking to get a general feel for each other rather than
> trying to get a feel for what kind of relationship we might develop.
True. But what if I'm trying to just pick someone up?
> If I'm aiming to have a friendship with someone I'm actually interested
> in because friendship is better than nothing, then I come across as
> disingenuous because I am obviously interested in more and just settling
> for what I can get. That sends the signal that what I want doesn't matter
> and that I'm more interested in the relationship than I am in the person.
I don't quite get this. If I'm interested enough in the person, why
wouldn't I take whatever relationship I could have?
> I find that if I go in with the mindset that I am an interesting person
> talking to someone who might be interesting, then our interest in each
> other develops more organically and we get to find out together
> how and if we fit and if we don't fit, it's no big deal to either of us
> because there wasn't that expectation of any form of relationship.
"Check" again. I know I'm interesting, but I might be a little *too*
interesting for anybody. Besides, being interesting isn't the same as
being sexy.
> Your mind reading abilities suck :)
<LOL> Once again, I've heard "Find a new skin" just often enough that I
come to expect it.
> [I]t seems like maybe
> you are protecting yourself from what you think people are thinking
> without taking the time to talk to them and find out what they are
> actually thinking.
Well, the worst happens more often than anything else... Or at least it
used to. I guess my attitude is just a leftover from those days.
> Instead of waiting for them to say "no", maybe it might help to
> give them an opportunity to say "yes".
I tried that last night. I still got "no". I've only once gotten "yes"
from someone I wanted, and that was because she started it and *I* said
"yes" to *her*.
> I've found that rejection is a lot easier to take when I don't assume
> that it's about me.
I can see this. I've just got a long history of being rejected in a way
that I was made to know it was very much about me. Most of it had to do
with my school days and the classmates I stayed "friends" with afterward
(you know, 'cuz if you don't have them you'll have almost no-one), but a
consistent pattern of that sort of thing can warp your perspective and
give you the feeling that the world really does dislike you before
you've given each new person a chance. IOW, I assume everyone rejects
me offhand because I'm "weird", even by Goth-scene standards. And yes,
sometimes my frustration and my inability to argue gracefully let my
nasty side come through and I lose people that way.
> Mostly, I find people I mesh with when I'm genuinely interested in
> hearing what they have to say and discover that they are genuinely
> interested in what I have to say.
Sure. Someone loaned me *How to Win Friends and Influence People* once,
and the very first principle was "Become genuinely interested in other
people." So I've tried to act accordingly.
But then, you're a mature adult looking for a real relationship; I'm
just an overgrown teenager still looking for another boi (or maybe a
girl) to fuck. That sort of boi comes along about once every *year*
these days, *if* I'm lucky--and even then, the boi turns out to be
straight. (Most really pretty long-haired boyz are straight; I mean,
why would they be gay if most men aren't as pretty as they are? Maybe
they could be bi, but they're still rare in this World O' Skinhead.) So
if the *opportunity to ask* only comes that often, how long will it take
for me to find someone who'll say yes? How can I even get "practice"?
It's not like other people who get the opportunity to ask every month or
so--or two weeks, or whatever.
> It's rare, but totally worth the effort.
"Rare" ain't the word! <rueful chuckle>
I guess what was so frustrating about last night (which inspired all
this) was that I thought I was getting signals and I still came up
craps. He wasn't cruel or unkind about it at all--he was very
understanding and cordial. Then he walked away and we'll probably never
speak to each other again. I mean, I've been on the other end, too (and
regretted it a time or two--I mean, I get so few chances). Well, there
goes my chance for this year...
`una
> `una wrote:
>
> I
> just can't imagine anymore that anyone would say "yes". I've never
> really been able to imagine it.
That is a huge part of your problem. Not only is it an internal issue
that colors everything you hear, but it's an external issue in how it
subconsciously affects your body language.
> > I find that it's easier to get a feel for what kind of chemistry
> > I have with a person if things start off with the attitude that
> > we are looking to get a general feel for each other rather than
> > trying to get a feel for what kind of relationship we might develop.
>
> True. But what if I'm trying to just pick someone up?
Getting a feel for the chemistry is a huge part of that.
If there's no chemistry, the person isn't going to sleep with you,
unless it's some sort of self-destructive desperation thing,
which isn't particularly healthy, but if that's what does it for you...
good luck?
> > If I'm aiming to have a friendship with someone I'm actually interested
> > in because friendship is better than nothing, then I come across as
> > disingenuous because I am obviously interested in more and just settling
> > for what I can get. That sends the signal that what I want doesn't matter
> > and that I'm more interested in the relationship than I am in the person.
>
> I don't quite get this. If I'm interested enough in the person, why
> wouldn't I take whatever relationship I could have?
If you can be friends with someone you desire to be more than friends
with and somehow avoid getting hurt, go for it. However, the most
common outcome of such arrangements is that one or both people involved
are constantly frustrated by the tension no matter how unspoken or
well-concealed it might be. Sooner or later one or both parties
gets burned.
> > I find that if I go in with the mindset that I am an interesting person
> > talking to someone who might be interesting, then our interest in each
> > other develops more organically and we get to find out together
> > how and if we fit and if we don't fit, it's no big deal to either of us
> > because there wasn't that expectation of any form of relationship.
>
> "Check" again. I know I'm interesting, but I might be a little *too*
> interesting for anybody. Besides, being interesting isn't the same as
> being sexy.
It isn't about you. It's about two people noticing each other
and showing an interest in each other as people, rather than
showing interest in each other as objects for a possible relationship.
If you focus on the goal, you miss out on the person. Whether you are
after a quick fuck, a friendship, or whatever, you are doing it with
another human being. So, the best way to succeed is to show that person
that you recognize them as a human being and don't view them as just
a warm body to fill a role.
When you do that, you also have the expectation that the person will
do the same for you. That expectation gives you a high likelihood
of both parties having a mutually enjoyable time.
> > Your mind reading abilities suck :)
>
> <LOL> Once again, I've heard "Find a new skin" just often enough that I
> come to expect it.
I knew you were responding to an expectation and not to what I actually
wrote because I had no clue what you were talking about.
I am pointing it out because it's a habit that hinders your ability
to communicate effectively. Not only does it make it difficult for
you to hear what people are actually saying, as opposed to what
you expect/assume they are saying, but it also makes it difficult
for people to know how to talk to you without tripping those triggers.
It makes people feel judged/misunderstood/etc.
> > I've found that rejection is a lot easier to take when I don't assume
> > that it's about me.
>
> I can see this. I've just got a long history of being rejected in a way
> that I was made to know it was very much about me. Most of it had to do
> with my school days and the classmates I stayed "friends" with afterward
> (you know, 'cuz if you don't have them you'll have almost no-one), but a
> consistent pattern of that sort of thing can warp your perspective and
> give you the feeling that the world really does dislike you before
> you've given each new person a chance. IOW, I assume everyone rejects
> me offhand because I'm "weird", even by Goth-scene standards. And yes,
> sometimes my frustration and my inability to argue gracefully let my
> nasty side come through and I lose people that way.
I grew up with no-one. I'll take no-one over toxic people any day.
Your pain is not unique pain and it is not something you are a slave to.
Every single time I have been rejected, whether it was cruel or the blow
was softened, I was told that it was because I was fat. It was all about
me and how gross and disgusting I was because I was fat.
That shit is NOT about me. It's about whatever issues other people have.
I can sit here and feel sorry for myself and assume the whole world
thinks I'm disgusting or I can tell the assholes to go fuck themselves
because they don't speak for the entire world. Then, I can go out and
find people who like me just because I'm awesome.
You can sit there and believe the people who told you that you were
worthless your whole life or you can start to work through that shit.
But I guarantee that if you sit there and believe it, then you're
not going to find anything healthy because you're not going to be
healthy.
I'm going to be 35 in less than a month and my life is just now beginning
because it's taken me this long to get over that shit. Now that I'm over
it I am attracting people who like me for all kinds of reasons
including the way I look. I haven't found romance yet, but I've made
incredible friends who respect me and love me. I don't have to settle
for unsatisfying relationships "because that's all I can have".
I know what I need from a romantic partner and I'm not going to settle.
I know for a fact that I don't have to.
The first thing I learned was that when I think I have to settle for
what I can have because I can't have what I want, then all I get is
what I can have and what I can have is shit. When I stopped believing
that I had to settle and cleared all of the shit out of my life,
I suddenly started having what I have always wanted. As long as my life
was full of shit, there was no room in it for what I wanted.
Clear out the shit and smell the fresh air for a change.
> Sure. Someone loaned me *How to Win Friends and Influence People* once,
> and the very first principle was "Become genuinely interested in other
> people." So I've tried to act accordingly.
Acting is bullshit. If you aren't genuinely interested in what
other people are thinking or feeling, don't bother. That's a waste
of your time and their time.
> But then, you're a mature adult looking for a real relationship; I'm
> just an overgrown teenager still looking for another boi (or maybe a
> girl) to fuck.
People like to fuck people who are genuinely interested in them
as people. If you just want to fuck a toy, buy a blow up doll.
What I'm writing to you isn't just about finding True Love or
whatever bullshit the self help aisle is selling this month.
It's about genuinely respecting yourself and others so that
when you fuck, both people get to enjoy it.
It's also about helping you get laid because the only people
who want to fuck someone whose life is full of shit are the people
whose lives are full of worse shit.
If that's what gets you off, go for it, but don't expect people
to line up for it.
> I guess what was so frustrating about last night
AAAAAND it's all about you again.
`una - have fun with that.
Panurge
> Panurge wrote:
>
> > `una wrote:
> >
> > I just can't imagine anymore that anyone would say "yes".
>
> That is a huge part of your problem.
OK. Honestly, I do know this. Only recently have I realized that maybe
I'm not being fair to myself (which, natch, makes me regret the past
even more).
I guess I ought to just stop looking for people to pick up since that's
not gonna work out anyway and just look for friends and hope something
happens with one of them. TBH, that's how I'd prefer it to work out.
But that hasn't happened, either. I mean, I don't *think* of myself as
someone who doesn't care about others--I *want* to find someone I care
about and that I'm genuinely interested in. It's not like I don't have
*friends*--I can make friends.
> If you focus on the goal, you miss out on the person.
Why would I interact with a person I wasn't interested in? This isn't a
problem.
> You can sit there and believe the people who told you that you were
> worthless your whole life or you can start to work through that shit.
I'm trying.
> Clear out the shit and smell the fresh air for a change.
The only shit in my life right now is in my head. That's actually been
true for a very long time. (Or is that what you're talking about?)
No--what I can have appears to be NOTHING. So I have a choice between
shit and nothing. When you've had nothing for long enough, shit starts
to look like at least a change (depending on how you're defining "shit",
which I'm not sure of).
As for not settling: I went a VERY long time refusing to settle. *This
is why I have nothing.* I didn't see something good in front of me
because I thought I might have MY IDEAL if I waited a little longer or I
didn't know THE EXACT PROPER WAY TO PROCEED or whatever. And that went
on and on...
> > Someone loaned me *How to Win Friends and Influence People* once,
> > and the very first principle was "Become genuinely interested in other
> > people." So I've tried to act accordingly.
>
> Acting is bullshit.
Um, not *that* kind of acting. (After all, Dale Carnegie did say
"genuinely interested", i.e., "not acting.") Playing The Game is just
not in the cards for me--I figured that was obvious. (I would, wouldn't
I?) When people tell me I've Gotta Play The Game, whether it's
relationships or music, I half blow them off and half get even more
despondent, because the LAST thing I want to do is to Play The Game and
I don't know what else to do because no other course of
action--something that involves *not* Playing The Game--is working out.
> If you just want to fuck a toy, buy a blow up doll.
BTW, did I tell you about my self-deprecating streak??
I developed it to prevent my ego from getting any bigger than it already
was. Maybe that's gotten out of control, too.
> AAAAAND it's all about you again.
What can I say??? Great--now I'm deeply ashamed of myself AND
frustrated. But maybe I should just be doubly frustrated because I
can't communicate clearly enough.
You make me out to be a worse person than I think I am. But I know I
should be thanking you anyway for making me see myself this way, because
if I'm really that much of an ass I need to know. So thank you. I also
apologize for frustrating you.
You know what--maybe I should just start over with this:
"Hi, I'm Jeff and I don't know how to meet people who genuinely interest
me and Heinz57 is completely right about me and I am socially
challlenged to an unprecedented extreme. You see, I met someone who
genuinely interested me last night and I went too fast and now I'll
never talk to him again. WTF is wrong with me?"
Una, I don't just approach *anyone*. I approach people in whom I'm
genuinely interested. If I didn't have that attitude, I'd probably have
had at least some success, because my lack of concern for others
would've actually made me *bolder*. If I'm so unconcerned with others,
why haven't I left a trail of damaged lives behind me?
I'm not taking issue with anything you've said--just that I don't think
I'm *that* far gone.
Panurge
myself into *another* hole with someone I also find interesting and care
about.
kest <ke...@removethedamnspamtrap.nettrip.org> wrote:
--
`una
> `una wrote:
>
> I guess I ought to just stop looking for people to pick up since that's
> not gonna work out anyway and just look for friends and hope something
> happens with one of them.
Being defeatist doesn't help.
> > If you focus on the goal, you miss out on the person.
>
> Why would I interact with a person I wasn't interested in? This isn't a
> problem.
You completely missed the point again. It is assumed that whoever you
are talking to is someone you are interested for some reason, whether
that's because you like a mundane detail or because they look hot to you
or whatever.
If you focus on what you want from that person, whether it's a fuck
or a relationship or a conversation, you're turning that person
into an objective. People aren't objectives.
If you approach a person as a person with intent to find out if
you'll actually like that person before deciding what you might
like to share with that person, you'll have a better chance of
getting what you want from that person than if you go in only
thinking about what you're going to get from the exchange.
That doesn't mean you ignore what you want to get what you can.
It just means that what you want is secondary to scoping out
the chemistry. Find out who the person is before deciding if
you want to sleep with them.
That doesn't mean getting to know them intimately. That just means
getting to know them AT ALL. It's amazing what you can find out
about a person in 5 minutes when you aren't focusing on what
you think the person thinks of you and what you want from the person.
> > You can sit there and believe the people who told you that you were
> > worthless your whole life or you can start to work through that shit.
>
> I'm trying.
No, you're not and I'll tell you why in a minute.
> > Clear out the shit and smell the fresh air for a change.
>
> The only shit in my life right now is in my head. That's actually been
> true for a very long time. (Or is that what you're talking about?)
That is EXACTLY what I am talking about.
> No--what I can have appears to be NOTHING. So I have a choice between
> shit and nothing.
If that's what you believe, that is the truth you will experience.
When you stop thinking of nothing as NOTHING and approach it as
"something different than shit," then you discover that there are
more options than you ever considered.
But that takes time and effort and clearing the shit out of your head.
It's easier to stay with what you know. It's easier to take the safe
risks that you know the outcome of because they are same risks you
always take.
> As for not settling: I went a VERY long time refusing to settle. *This
> is why I have nothing.* I didn't see something good in front of me
> because I thought I might have MY IDEAL if I waited a little longer or I
> didn't know THE EXACT PROPER WAY TO PROCEED or whatever. And that went
> on and on...
Not settling isn't about aiming for your ideals. Ideals are bullshit.
People aren't ideal. Life isn't a choice between shit and ideal.
It's a wide range of choices, but you miss all of the good choices
if all you can see is shit and ideal.
> > If you just want to fuck a toy, buy a blow up doll.
>
> BTW, did I tell you about my self-deprecating streak??
This is why you aren't trying.
Also, you didn't need to tell me because it's glaringly obvious.
I mean, it always has been. It's the one thing I knew about you
before I met you. It's in the way you write, the way you stand,
the way you move. It poisons EVERYTHING.
It is poison. The opposite of arrogance is not self-deprecation.
In fact, self-deprecation is one of the more common forms of
arrogance because it makes everything about YOU. It isn't humility.
It's just a way to shine a light on yourself. It's big negative light
but it's still pointed directly at YOU
THIS is what I am trying to tell you. Stop making it all about YOU.
Oddly, the way to do that is to do that is to make it all about you.
You have to take the time to learn to respect yourself. When you respect
yourself, you show respect for others. When you show respect for others,
they tend to return it. If they don't return it, go find people who do.
When you respect yourself, those people are much easier to find.
Is putting yourself down respecting yourself? NO.
When you put yourself down, you sending the very clear message that
it doesn't matter if someone likes you because you hate yourself.
You don't give the other person a chance to make up their own mind
because you've already made it up for them.
Flip it around. Is being arrogant respecting yourself? NO.
It's just another form of making up people's minds for them
instead of letting them decide what they think about you
for themselves.
> What can I say??? Great--now I'm deeply ashamed of myself AND
> frustrated. But maybe I should just be doubly frustrated because I
> can't communicate clearly enough.
You are communicating plenty.
I'm not trying to shame you. You are shaming yourself plenty for
everybody on the planet.
I'm trying to help you see that your self-shaming is killing your
efforts to meet people before you've even had a chance to say hello.
It's in your body language. When people see it, they don't want to
be around it unless they are the kind of person who gets off on it.
You can change this. This is something that is in your power to change.
You are the only person with the power to change it.
> You make me out to be a worse person than I think I am. But I know I
> should be thanking you anyway for making me see myself this way, because
> if I'm really that much of an ass I need to know. So thank you. I also
> apologize for frustrating you.
See this here? What you just wrote?
I haven't made you out to be anything. I have pointed at behaviors
and body language that are hindering your efforts to meet people
and you just have jumped to the conclusion that I am saying you suck.
I didn't say you suck. I didn't even imply it. You reached that
conclusion all on your own because that's the conclusion you are
used to reaching. I'm telling you to STOP reaching that conclusion
because it isn't a useful conclusion. It's the very conclusion
that's killing your efforts before you even think to try to make them.
You are not an ass. You don't suck. You're not broken.
You're pitying yourself for all of those things and expecting
everybody to join your pity party. I'm not playing you that song,
but it's the song you are hearing because you play it so loudly
for yourself.
Take the needle off the record.
You have some unhealthy mental habits. We all do. We all deal with this.
It doesn't mean we suck or don't deserve love or can't find people
to fuck. It just means we're human. Being human sometimes means doing
things that suck. It also means doing things that are awesome. It means
doing things that are mundane. It's just human.
You have a lot of awesome traits. You can give people a chance to
find out what they are if you stop wandering around with the big
"I SUCK" sign on your body language.
Stop telling yourself you suck.
> Heinz57 is completely right about me and I am socially
> challlenged to an unprecedented extreme.
No. You're not.
You're just too deep into your own headspace to come out and play.
`una - suffered a lot of shit until I dug myself out of that space
you are in. It's a shitty place to be and you don't have to stay there.
`una
> I'm mostly just gonna say "thank you" here, because I don't want to dig
> myself into *another* hole with someone I also find interesting and care
> about.
You're not in a hole with me.
If I didn't like you or I thought you were hopeless or
I thought you sucked or were a horrible person or whatever
it is you think I think of you, I wouldn't have bothered
to write long ass messages to try to answer your question.
What's wrong with you is that there is nothing especially wrong
with you beyond the fact that you are convinced that you are
too fucked up for anybody to care. (I happen to care.)
When things don't work out for you, you assume that it's because
you're fucked up. Instead of saying, "Shit happens," you say,
"I'm fucked up."
When you constantly tell yourself that you are fucked up,
you have no choice but to believe it, which fucks up your life.
You're not fucked up, but you've done a pretty good job of
fucking up your life because of the negativity you think you need.
The only way to break that cycle is to stop telling yourself
that you are fucked up.
When, I look at you, I don't see someone who is fucked up.
I'm not writing to someone who is fucked up and just needs to
stop being fucked up to enjoy life.
I read your words and see your body language and see somebody
who has a problem that destroyed my life for decades and I just
want to say that you don't have to live like that anymore.
It isn't healthy. It isn't fun. And it destroys almost everything
before it has a chance to grow. It's unrefined shit that can mellow
into fertilizer if you stop adding more shit to the pile.
The shit isn't your experiences. Experiences suck, but they suck a lot
less when you stop using them as excuses to tell yourself
how much you suck. You don't suck. You have a bunch of experiences
that suck. Your attitude and behavior contribute to those experiences,
but that doesn't mean YOU suck. It means your attitude sucks in some
ways that can change if you want them to.
`una - writing hundreds of lines of text just to say, "Dude, stop
telling yourself that you suck."
Nyx
Yeah, taking relationship advice from una. That's smart.
Nyx
Peter H. Coffin
Why not?
--
The trouble with things that extend your lifespan is that they happen at
wrong end. I'd hate to be wearing Depends at 85 and thinking "I gave up
booze and cigarettes for three more years of this."
The Porcine Plague of Fascinet
> NO ONE is interested in me--well, unless I'm not interested in them,
> natch... :-/ I never get any signals, and sometimes when I think I am
> I'm not. No one looks at me, even when I give them the opportunity.
> (Well, occasionally they do, but they don't *seem* to be looking at me
> *that* way IYKWIM.)
>
> I know acting desperate won't help, but I am. I don't come here with my
> problems, but here I am now, appealing to a group of people who don't
> even know me well enough to answer my question. But I guess it can't
> hurt to ask whoever I can.
>
> Am I fated to have to give up my heart's desire to get companionship or
> a music career or, hell, *anything* in life? How could a relationship
> based on that be "real" in any way? Am I just gonna have to resign
> myself to being my own boyfriend and running MIDI sequences?
>
> I mean, I know there's some people for whom just nothing they want is
> ever gonna happen, but this is just ridiculous. It can't *all* be the
> world's fault. :-/ What's wrong with me??
>
No idea.
Just remember, there's nothing so wrong with you that you can't find
someone more fucked up than you are to bring into your life.
You sound a little passive. "No one looks at me, even when I give
them the opportunity?" Unless you're a gay man under twenty-five or
absolutely gorgeous, they ain't gonna. You're a guy, so you ain't
pretty and you got a little stink (no matter whatcha think). No one's
going to build up your ego so that you might ask them out.
You also seem to have a manhunt philosophy of dating. For that to
work well, you need to spend so much time with your target Switch to
a scattergun or cafeteria line theory. Get to know a group of
applicants only so well to know that they're reasonably interesting to
you and if they'll talk with you regularly (that is, that you're
reasonably interesting to them), then give them opportunities to do
things with you that you'd already do (alone or with friends) or would
like to do if you had someone to do them with.
Budget six to eighteen months on the enterprise.
-F
Panurge
> Yeah, taking relationship advice from una. That's smart.
If it gets me to take the bright-lit I SUCK sign off my mind and rip it
apart and throw it in the Big Ol' Dumpster O' Psychological Garbage
(there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, but not on my part),
it'll be worth it. I'll still despair somewhat over my luck in love,
because even with my self-respect restored it'll be a major job to find
someone, but it'll be an heck of an improvement. What exactly in her
posts is worth challenging??
Una, thank you. Someone finally told me what I needed to hear--I'm just
sorry I wasn't driven to it years earlier. (Hey, give me some time to
work this out of my system, OK??) ;-)
`una
> On Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:05:32 -0700 (PDT), Nyx wrote:
> >
> > Yeah, taking relationship advice from una. That's smart.
>
> Why not?
Because I wouldn't settle for what I could have
when I couldn't have what I wanted.
`una - just needed to raise my standards in both cases.
Panurge
> Just remember, there's nothing so wrong with you that you can't find
> someone more fucked up than you are to bring into your life.
Naah. Una's right--I'm not fucked up as much as I say I am. I think I
just figured there must be something fundamentally wrong with me beyond
that if I'm this unlucky in love.
> You sound a little passive. "No one looks at me, even when I give
> them the opportunity?" Unless you're a gay man under twenty-five or
> absolutely gorgeous, they ain't gonna. You're a guy, so you ain't
> pretty and you got a little stink (no matter whatcha think).
Not true. (Not about me, but guys in general. Guys in general have
been accepting Madison Avenue's current picture of them for far too
long.) The problem is that the guys who are pretty tend to be straight.
I mean, when you look at it from their point of view, why would they be
gay? They might be bi, but only for boyz who are as pretty as they are
or thereabouts. That's rare now, but it doesn't need to be.
Everybody has some stink. That's why they invented cologne and soap.
> No one's going to build up your ego so that you might ask them out.
OK.
> You also seem to have a manhunt philosophy of dating.
Well, no. In fact, I've almost never acted that way. It might be
better to say I have *no* philosophy of dating, since doing it the right
way hasn't worked out, either.
> Get to know a group of
> applicants only so well to know that they're reasonably interesting to
> you and if they'll talk with you regularly (that is, that you're
> reasonably interesting to them), then give them opportunities to do
> things with you that you'd already do (alone or with friends) or would
> like to do if you had someone to do them with.
How is this different from just making friends? When I do this I wind
up with friends, not lovers. (OK, I think I know the answer to this.
But here comes the ulterior motive issue again that Una talked about.
If I've already got a hard-on for someone, then what? Am I being
deceptive if I never tell them? Am I being deceptive if I tell them
after six months?)
Last time I tried that she gave me a phone number, but it didn't work.
I still talk to her, though, but I never see her outside the clubs.
Point is, how am I gonna know who to be "active" with? Why would I say
hello to someone who wasn't even looking at me when I was giving them
every opportunity to do so? What's the right way to approach someone?
`una
> If it gets me to take the bright-lit I SUCK sign off my mind and rip it
> apart and throw it in the Big Ol' Dumpster O' Psychological Garbage
> (there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, but not on my part),
> it'll be worth it.
Glad to help. Nothing scares off potential partners like a
flashing neon I SUCK sign stuck all over your body language.
> Una, thank you. Someone finally told me what I needed to hear--I'm just
> sorry I wasn't driven to it years earlier. (Hey, give me some time to
> work this out of my system, OK??) ;-)
Give yourself all the time you need. It isn't easy.
You've been receiving countless "I suck" messages from
external sources and reinforcing them with internal agreement.
Those habits don't fall apart just because you realize
how much you are hurting yourself.
It takes practice and the whole time you're practicing,
you'll want to tell yourself that you suck for not
being better at it faster. There's usually a process of
shutting down the messages in one area only to discover
that they still exist in another. Once you make that
discovery, you'll probably want to tell yourself that
you suck for not realizing it sooner. Avoid that impulse.
The best way to overcome the "I suck" habit is to DO things
that make you feel like you don't suck. Making sure you
eat nourishing stuff, get enough sleep and fluids, and
exercising gives you the message that your body is worth
caring for and that you are worthy of respect and care.
Treating yourself to fun things reinforces that.
Massages, manicures, dancing, whatever you find fun and
relaxing is worth doing.
The better care you take of yourself, the better care others
will take with you. The more you respect yourself the more
other will respect you. Likewise, when you care for and respect
yourself, you're better able to care for and respect others
because it's easier to respect others when you aren't worrying
that they are thinking the worst of you.
Many people find that volunteering or giving to charity or
simply smiling at people once in awhile contributes to a sense
of feeling connected with others. A sense of connection
can strongly reinforce the sense that you don't suck.
Avoiding the thoughts is important too, but reinforcing
positive thoughts with action helps most. Be patient with
yourself when you think you've screwed up.
There's definitely a learning curve to the process.
Took me a couple of years to get the hang of it.
Some people catch on faster than that.
Some work at for decades.
I don't know if anybody reaches the point where it's no longer
an issue. As human beings, we tend to feel like we suck sometimes.
It's worth it to deal with it because, if nothing else,
you don't feel like shit all the time when you aren't telling
yourself how much you suck all the time.
`una - probably over-helping now
Nyx
Don't know what that means.
But what I meant is taking relationship advice from someone who
doesn't date much and isn't in a long term relationship....well... you
think you're smart, figure it out.
Not that I'm saying I'm any better, but I'm not handing out advice on
the subject, either.
Nyx
The Porcine Plague of Fascinet
> The Porcine Plague of Fascinet <fasci...@mad.scientist.com> wrote:
>
> <...>
>
> > You also seem to have a manhunt philosophy of dating.
>
> Well, no. In fact, I've almost never acted that way. It might be
> better to say I have *no* philosophy of dating, since doing it the right
> way hasn't worked out, either.
>
> > Get to know a group of
> > applicants only so well to know that they're reasonably interesting to
> > you and if they'll talk with you regularly (that is, that you're
> > reasonably interesting to them), then give them opportunities to do
> > things with you that you'd already do (alone or with friends) or would
> > like to do if you had someone to do them with.
>
> How is this different from just making friends?
>
It's not.
It's perfectly acceptable that
>
> When I do this I wind up with friends, not lovers. (OK, I think I know the answer to this.
> But here comes the ulterior motive issue again that Una talked about.
> If I've already got a hard-on for someone, then what? Am I being
> deceptive if I never tell them? Am I being deceptive if I tell them
> after six months?)
>
"Hey, my friend Joe just told me about this Ethiopian place and I want
to check out the tej. I was thinking of going Friday, you want to
go?"
I've never met a woman who went from fifteen minute conversations to
dinner and wouldn't think it's a date. Hell, I've gave a girl a tour
of the used bookstores in Denver and she thought of it as a date. If
you ask a straight guy out like this, he won't realize what's
happening, but anyone else will.
Six months could be a problem. If you've just been talking off an on,
it's probably fine, but once you start doing date-like things, you
have a very short period, like a month (two at most) to make your
intentions clear, otherwise they think that you're not interested in
them, and you have a new friend.
Nothing wrong with that. I had a seven year relationship that started
that way. I took her out on a few terrible dates (with a more
primative method than I use now, more prone to failure), still hung
out with her for a year, and when I started expressing interest in
another girl, she pounced.
>
> Last time I tried that she gave me a phone number, but it didn't work.
> I still talk to her, though, but I never see her outside the clubs.
>
If she talks to you, you still have a chance. If she wasn't, she
wouldn't talk with you at the club. Just tell her that there's an
event at the art museum on Friday, that your membership gets you in
free with a guest, and since you're going, you'd like to go with her.
Ask her in person (never use a phone for someone you don't know
outside a single context, anyway). Just make sure your membership is
current and there is an event before you do it.
And if she says no and still talks with you, then ask her to do
something else a month and half later. But do the museum, a lot of
chicks dig the members-only nights (but not the patron-only nights for
some reason).
There are two things here.
The first is that this what I mean by the manhunt philosophy: focusing
one girl at a time. In the museum example, if she says no, ask each
of the other three people you see periodically but haven't really
befriended in the order in which you see them (it's good if they're in
different contexts). Don't prioritize them. Don't make special
arrangements for any individual. If you see someone the weekend
before, you can give them your phone number at the time and tell them
to call you by Monday, and if they don't just ask the others.
If none of them say yes by Wednesday, then take a friend, check out
the paintings and maybe mack on the chicks there (and there will
almost always be mackable chicks there). Then you can say, "Jack and
I went to that event I was telling you about. It was pretty cool.
Have you seen that Japanese chest with the Samurai killing the Water
Demon? Man thing kicks ass! Too bad it's going back to Dallas next
month. I think I'll check it out again Tuesday." Or whatever.
The other is the clubs. I know goth clubs are more cohesive than
most, but because there are so many people that are being so very
aggresive, people who aren't after fucking in the shitter are
defensive when they see behavior that can be interpreted that way.
You've got to be more persistent there than other places.
Don't meet people in one place only. Even if you're only interested
in goths, there's more than one place to find them on a regular basis.
>
> Point is, how am I gonna know who to be "active" with? Why would I say
> hello to someone who wasn't even looking at me when I was giving them
> every opportunity to do so? What's the right way to approach someone?
>
You don't know that until you know the person.
I just start saying by saying hello.
Maybe ask a question about that Celtic whatnot on the back of her
jacket or what she's reading.
-F
`una
> The Porcine Plague of Fascinet wrote:
>
> > Get to know a group of
> > applicants only so well to know that they're reasonably interesting to
> > you and if they'll talk with you regularly (that is, that you're
> > reasonably interesting to them), then give them opportunities to do
> > things with you that you'd already do (alone or with friends) or would
> > like to do if you had someone to do them with.
>
> How is this different from just making friends?
Flirting and intent.
Think of it like foreplay. Sure you could just aim for
the groin and reach your goal, but you've missed 90% of the fun.
Building casual flirtations with people allows you to get
to know them and get a feel for how you might mesh before
falling into bed with them.
The more casual you are about casual sex, the easier it is to find.
`una - just taking a stab at that one because I understand the
principle, but haven't actually applied it. YMMV
Peter H. Coffin
> The Porcine Plague of Fascinet <fasc...@mad.scientist.com> wrote:
>
>> Just remember, there's nothing so wrong with you that you can't find
>> someone more fucked up than you are to bring into your life.
>
> Naah. Una's right--I'm not fucked up as much as I say I am. I think I
> just figured there must be something fundamentally wrong with me beyond
> that if I'm this unlucky in love.
>
>> You sound a little passive. "No one looks at me, even when I give
>> them the opportunity?" Unless you're a gay man under twenty-five or
>> absolutely gorgeous, they ain't gonna. You're a guy, so you ain't
>> pretty and you got a little stink (no matter whatcha think).
>
> Not true. (Not about me, but guys in general. Guys in general have
> been accepting Madison Avenue's current picture of them for far too
> long.) The problem is that the guys who are pretty tend to be straight.
Well, that's because *people* tend to be straight, and yaoi manga
notwithstanding, pretty doesn't automatically mean anything.
> I mean, when you look at it from their point of view, why would they be
> gay? They might be bi, but only for boyz who are as pretty as they are
> or thereabouts. That's rare now, but it doesn't need to be.
Which doesn't need to be? That people might only be bi for the pretty?
Pretty's an influencing factor just like having money, or being younger,
or being older, or being there at the right time, or having lots of the
right kind of friends, or being emotionally broken are. They all pull at
each other, and steal influence from the other factors.
> Everybody has some stink. That's why they invented cologne and soap.
>
>> No one's going to build up your ego so that you might ask them out.
>
> OK.
>
>> You also seem to have a manhunt philosophy of dating.
>
> Well, no. In fact, I've almost never acted that way. It might be
> better to say I have *no* philosophy of dating, since doing it the right
> way hasn't worked out, either.
>
>> Get to know a group of
>> applicants only so well to know that they're reasonably interesting to
>> you and if they'll talk with you regularly (that is, that you're
>> reasonably interesting to them), then give them opportunities to do
>> things with you that you'd already do (alone or with friends) or would
>> like to do if you had someone to do them with.
>
> How is this different from just making friends? When I do this I wind
> up with friends, not lovers. (OK, I think I know the answer to this.
> But here comes the ulterior motive issue again that Una talked about.
> If I've already got a hard-on for someone, then what? Am I being
> deceptive if I never tell them? Am I being deceptive if I tell them
> after six months?)
Not telling leads to failure. Telling sometimes leads to failure. I'm in
favor of at least strongly hinting. People may be oblivious, but the
they *all* think about partnering (in any sense) a hell of a lot more
than they admit to, especially when they think someone else might be
thinking back. There might not be any follow-up, but almost everyone
else ends up picking neutrality in favor of rejection to.
> Last time I tried that she gave me a phone number, but it didn't work.
> I still talk to her, though, but I never see her outside the clubs.
Why not? Did she say "never seem me outside of the club"? Or did you
just quit asking? People's circumstances (and tastes) change all the
time. Even "married now, with two kids" can become "single with two
kids" or "single, kids on alternate weekends" in a remarkably short
period of time.
> Point is, how am I gonna know who to be "active" with? Why would I say
> hello to someone who wasn't even looking at me when I was giving them
> every opportunity to do so? What's the right way to approach someone?
That's why people invented cheesy pickup lines. If that's not your
thing, you need a different all-purpose connection, or be willing to
make one up on the spot. `una talked about that part already.
--
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best
troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he
gets closer and closer to my fortress.
--Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord
`una
> Why would I say
> hello to someone who wasn't even looking at me when I was giving them
> every opportunity to do so?
Because sometimes people don't see you until you say hello.
Sometimes they do and they are very careful about hiding it
because they don't want to look creepy.
Because sometimes it's fun to surprise people.
There are plenty of reasons to be the first to say hi.
> What's the right way to approach someone?
With genuine interest.
I find that I get a lot of mileage out of a smile and
a compliment/question. People like it when others notice
obvious details.
"That's a great tattoo. Who did your ink?"
"The cover of your book looks interesting. Which book is it?"
Sometimes I can pull off "You've got a great smile/lovely eyes,"
without sounding creepy, but that's a matter of context.
If you get closed body language and a short answer, move on.
If you get a smile and a light comment that opens the door,
try some light flirting to test the waters.
When you don't feel like you need to get a hit every time,
it's easy to sound casual and relaxed in a way that invites
conversation/flirtation.
`una - it all starts with, "HI!"
kest
> I'm mostly just gonna say "thank you" here, because I don't want to dig
> myself into *another* hole with someone I also find interesting and care
> about.
>
> kest <ke...@removethedamnspamtrap.nettrip.org> wrote:
>
>> Panurge wrote:
>>
Oh, here's the problem...you've picked up some stray crabs from
topposting without protection. ;)
k, happy to dig holes anytime
whisky-dave
"Nyx" <wayn...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:5367497d-4b75-4b3d...@s6g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
}Nyx
Not sure how relevant smart is but what she said seemed to make sense
and even seemed logical, and from what I read it wasn't really relationship
advice... i.e how to fetch your partners slippers and feed them beer but
more about
how you come across to others by your mannerisms what you do or say or don't
say.
whisky-dave
"`una" <una...@nettrip.org> wrote in message
news:cv8vq6-...@abyss.ninehells.com...
> Glad to help. Nothing scares off potential partners like a
> flashing neon I SUCK sign stuck all over your body language.
It doesn't scare off 'partners' in red light districts ;-)
Sucky, sucky, $5 solider boy.
whisky-dave
"The Porcine Plague of Fascinet" <fasc...@mad.scientist.com> wrote in
message
news:32afdc95-8ab2-4e6e...@m7g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
}Budget six to eighteen months on the enterprise.
}-F
Not to be confused with The Enterpise Five year mission.
But do be careful of going to places where no man has gone before. ;-)
Jennie Kermode
> Because sometimes people don't see you until you say hello.
> Sometimes they do and they are very careful about hiding it
I have to second this. There's a girl I like at the moment
(not that I'm intending to do anything about it, but the interest is
still a thing in itself) and I carefully avoided paying her any special
attention because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable and I was
waiting for a better opportunity to flirt; then last week she came up
and said hello to me, and told me a little about herself, and now I'm
free to talk and flirt with her. I think she's rather remarkably
beautiful but I wasn't just going to go up to her cold and blurt that
out.
> Sometimes I can pull off "You've got a great smile/lovely eyes,"
> without sounding creepy, but that's a matter of context.
Last week I got contact lenses for the first time and was
chatting to the cashier in Boots about them on the way home, and she
said she's only recently got them herself and that she'd found it a
revelation to see herself for the first time without her glasses, and
she looked up at me and she had stunning hazel-green eyes, deep set and
sparkly, and it was all I could do to choke back a declaration like
that. We held that eye contact just a little too long for there to be
nothing afoot, but I thought, no, I'm not going to do this here, there
are other people in the queue. I just hope she understands what she's
got there.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode
jen...@innocent.com
www.jenniekermode.com
Jennie Kermode
> The problem is that the guys who are pretty tend to be straight. I mean,
> when you look at it from their point of view, why would they be gay?
Um, because they were attracted to men? Being good looking
doesn't automatically rule that out. I know plenty of attractive gay men
of all ages, and attractive heterosexual women too, for that matter. See
my recent thread here about how some people are attracted to maleness
even when it has nothing to do with being pretty.
> If I've already got a hard-on for someone, then what? Am I being
> deceptive if I never tell them? Am I being deceptive if I tell them
> after six months?
It's not an either/or, tell or don't tell thing. In between
there's _flirting_. There's laughing at a person's jokes; making
slightly-longer-than-usual eye contact; flushing slightly and laughing
it off with gentle self-deprecating humor; being attentive and
remembering little things that matter; complementing personal style,
intelligence oo wit; etc., etc. And if that doesn't work, there's
mentioning your interest to mutual friends and getting their opinion on
wether or not there's any chemistry there. So long as you're restrained
about things and ready to drop it if you cause apparent discomfort,
you're unlikely to lose a friendship as a result. So you may find love,
there's a good chance you'll get laid, and you'll probably make a
friend. It's all good, no?
Panurge
> Which doesn't need to be? That people might only be bi for the pretty?
No--boyz being pretty to begin with. A lot of "pretty" is about doing,
not just being.
> Not telling leads to failure. Telling sometimes leads to failure. I'm in
> favor of at least strongly hinting.
True. I guess it's a matter of figuring out when to drop the hint. For
that, I need to get far enough. For that, I need to find the right
opener (or any opener that's not outright obtuse).
> > Last time I tried that she gave me a phone number, but it didn't work.
> > I still talk to her, though, but I never see her outside the clubs.
>
> Why not? Did she say "never seem me outside of the club"? Or did you
> just quit asking?
Probably the latter, but those hints never got picked up (or more
accurately brushed aside with, essentially, "But I see you here."
> ...you need a different all-purpose connection, or be willing to
> make one up on the spot. `una talked about that part already.
Well, the latter's more my way. It just seems more "natural" and
"honest".
Oh, and thanks for responding. ;-)
Panurge
> Panurge wrote:
>
> > The Porcine Plague of Fascinet wrote:
> >
> > > Get to know a group of
> > > applicants only so well to know that they're reasonably interesting to
> > > you and if they'll talk with you regularly (that is, that you're
> > > reasonably interesting to them), then give them opportunities to do
> > > things with you that you'd already do (alone or with friends) or would
> > > like to do if you had someone to do them with.
> >
> > How is this different from just making friends?
>
> Flirting and intent.
True. I guess I just rarely get to the point where I can consider
flirting. I've done plenty of flirting with the girl I mentioned
elsewhere, but it never goes beyond that. We act almost like BF&GF
except for the fact that we never see each other outside the clubs.
Panurge
> Oh, here's the problem...you've picked up some stray crabs from
> topposting without protection. ;)
>
>
> k, happy to dig holes anytime
LOL!
Panurge
> It takes practice and the whole time you're practicing,
> you'll want to tell yourself that you suck for not
> being better at it faster.
Right. You know, learning to play a musical instrument is the same
way--and I've got a lifetime of experience at playing musical
instruments less well than I want to play them. That might actually be
a large part of it. (I HATE making mistakes when playing music, and
that keeps me from practicing. Vicious circle, yadda yadda. I really,
really admire the true virtuosos, even when they're playing music I
don't necessarily like.)
> `una - probably over-helping now
<chuckle>
Panurge
> On 2009-10-19, Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > The problem is that the guys who are pretty tend to be straight. I mean,
> > when you look at it from their point of view, why would they be gay?
>
> Um, because they were attracted to men?
I guess, but it doesn't seem to work that way. (But then, here I'm
imagining how I'd react if I were pretty instead of allowing them to be
themselves.) Still, I've always had this idea that pretty men tend to
have chips on their shoulders about their beauty--they seem downright
embarrassed about it sometimes. Maybe I've read too many magazines.
> In between there's _flirting_.
True.
Really, I know all this deep inside--it's just that I was in a
particularly frustrated state last Saturday night and felt like coming
here with my personal issues. I tend to grind those axes into existing
threads, I'll admit, but I don't *think* I normally start threads about
them, and I don't mean to do it again. Maybe I need to work at becoming
a good flirter (however you might do that).
> And if that doesn't work, there's
> mentioning your interest to mutual friends and getting their opinion on
> wether or not there's any chemistry there.
Done that, but not much help there, because, well, this is a club scene
and people aren't necessarily that close and so don't have so much to
say. And my *friends*--well, the ones I see on a regular
basis--generally aren't part of the "Goth" scene (gotta put it in quotes
here in the ATL), so they don't know who I'm interested in.
> So you may find love,
> there's a good chance you'll get laid, and you'll probably make a
> friend. It's all good, no?
I suppose, except for the "good chance I'll get laid" (though I suppose
my chances will improve from "poor" to "dark side of fair" once I
immolate the I SUCK complex). But that's just the course the world
took, I guess...
Panurge
`una <una...@nettrip.org> wrote:
> Life isn't a choice between shit and ideal.
Agreed--I always got chuffed at any cultural artifact that played the
"ideal/reality" card and showed "reality" as "effectively shit".
Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. "Reality" has long since come to
mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
experience. What have we become?
> It's a wide range of choices, but you miss all of the good choices
> if all you can see is shit and ideal.
No, no, no--I didn't see just shit and ideal. I saw something good but
decided to hold out anyway (which might be even more stupid than not
seeing something good for what it was).
Peter H. Coffin
> Really, I know all this deep inside--it's just that I was in a
> particularly frustrated state last Saturday night and felt like coming
> here with my personal issues. I tend to grind those axes into existing
> threads, I'll admit, but I don't *think* I normally start threads about
> them, and I don't mean to do it again. Maybe I need to work at becoming
> a good flirter (however you might do that).
Bear in mind, too, that the difference between "opening line for a
chat-up" and the starting of a thread here is rather on the thin side.
It's the same KIND of balance between "declaration", "appeal", and
"opening"....
--
For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience?
-- Paul (I Corinthians 10:29)
Peter H. Coffin
> `una <una...@nettrip.org> wrote:
>> It's a wide range of choices, but you miss all of the good choices
>> if all you can see is shit and ideal.
>
> No, no, no--I didn't see just shit and ideal. I saw something good but
> decided to hold out anyway (which might be even more stupid than not
> seeing something good for what it was).
It's also WAY easier to parlay being "Mr. Right Here" into "Mr. Right"
than to start from "Just this guy, you know?"...
`una
> (I HATE making mistakes when playing music, and
> that keeps me from practicing. Vicious circle, yadda yadda. I really,
> really admire the true virtuosos, even when they're playing music I
> don't necessarily like.)
I am a perfectionist with a driving need to be RIGHT, which
kept me from writing anything serious for decades.
Every little mistake was a dagger. Any form of feedback was
an anvil from the sky.
Finally, I just had to say FUCK IT and start making mistakes
on purpose just so I could get used to it. I found that even
when I was trying to fuck things up on purpose, I was doing
many things right despite myself. I came to the conclusion
that fucking things up could not stop be from getting things right.
Now, I don't really have much of a problem with mistakes.
I still don't like them, but I don't feel like I've destroyed
everything when I make one.
It's transferred into my relationships well in a number of ways.
`una - flying buttress of support
Panurge
> On 2009-10-20, `una <una...@nettrip.org> wrote:
> > Sometimes they do and they are very careful about hiding it
>
> I have to second this.
I have to *third* it! ;-) I think not wanting to come across like a
creep is a big part of the issue. As I said before, I know all these
things deep down, but it's good to have things said a little more
concretely.
Joseph Brenner
Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> writes:
> Sure. Someone loaned me *How to Win Friends and Influence People* once,
> and the very first principle was "Become genuinely interested in other
> people." So I've tried to act accordingly.
My suggestion would be to carry a copy of it around with you,
ostentatiously reading it in public in inappropriate situations.
I think it would work as an ice-breaker.
(It's interesting how much Carnegie's style is like Heinlein's.
Did Heinlein pick it up from him? Did they both pick it up from
somewhere else?)
kest
> When things don't work out for you, you assume that it's because
> you're fucked up. Instead of saying, "Shit happens," you say,
> "I'm fucked up."
>
We've had this consultant in at work, and some of the stuff he's been
telling us has been pretty decent. One of the things he said recently
was that a lot of people confuse their role and their identity, and you
shouldn't do that. If you say, for example, 'I am not a good programmer
and therefore I suck', then you have lost before you even started and
you will never become a good programmer. If instead you say 'I am not a
good programmer *but* I am awesome and therefore I can learn' then you
are much more likely to succeed. Another thing you can say is 'I am not
a good programmer and therefore I should not try to be a programmer,
because I am a much more awesome salesperson' or something like that and
that's fine too. Whatever it is you are or aren't good at doesn't
*actually* reflect on your worth as a human being.
k
kest
> Panurge wrote:
> With genuine interest.
>
> I find that I get a lot of mileage out of a smile and
> a compliment/question. People like it when others notice
> obvious details.
>
> "That's a great tattoo. Who did your ink?"
> "The cover of your book looks interesting. Which book is it?"
> Sometimes I can pull off "You've got a great smile/lovely eyes,"
> without sounding creepy, but that's a matter of context.
>
"Can I buy you a drink" is a pretty universally accepted 'I think you're
hot' pickup line as well. The important thing is to approach them, like
una said in some other post, like a person and not like an objective,
'cause people can smell that shit.
(Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times strange guys
have approached me and asked, as one of the first things out of their
mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?' That is a terrible pickup
line, people!! What in the world are you thinking?! I understand your
desire to avoid having your nuts kicked in by a potential jealous SO,
but trust me...if a girl has a boyfriend, she will be sure to drop a
mention of him within the first 30 seconds of your conversation, whether
you asked or not.)
k
kest
> Panurge wrote:
>
> There are plenty of reasons to be the first to say hi.
>
>> What's the right way to approach someone?
>
> With genuine interest.
In thinking about this more, I think that part of the issue is, even if
you have been staring at the object of your affection from across the
bar all night, they may not have noticed you yet. So even though you
know you think they are teh cuteness, you have to be very gentle and
patient with them, because they need to *decide* whether or not they are
interested in you, from scratch. Any sort of pressure before that
decision gets made may result in a 'no'.
k
Jennie Kermode
> Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times strange guys
> have approached me and asked, as one of the first things out of their
> mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?'
It also means that if one has a girlfriend one is obliged to
either lie or out oneself to a stranger, with the attendent risk of
violence. Sure, one can ignore the guy, but that often leads to
hostility; or one can obfuscate, but that's generally taken as a
come-on. This kind of experience means that I immediately feel hostile
toward anyone who approaches me with that question even when I'm not in
that situation.
Round here, it's common for Asian guys around thirty years of
age to hit on young white women walking down the street with that line.
If one says firmly that one is attached, the usual response is to ask
"Do I still have a chance?" (points for honesty, at least) or "How long
have you been together?" (as if a short-term relationship is considered
more subject to challenge). I assume that these lines sometimes work for
them, or they wouldn't be so persistent, though a simple "Look, mate,
I'm not going to fuck you, okay?" usually leads to them backing off in
an amiable manner.
Jennie Kermode
> being better at it faster. There's usually a process of
> shutting down the messages in one area only to discover
> that they still exist in another. Once you make that
> discovery, you'll probably want to tell yourself that
> you suck for not realizing it sooner. Avoid that impulse.
Lots of sensible stuff from 'una here. I just want to add that
you might also find it helpful to tackle paranoia with humour. When you
find yourself getting into one of those "I suck for not realising it
sooner" loops, laugh at yourself, but with good humour, with affection.
Don't think of yourself as an abject failure, shake your head and tell
yourself off for being a wee bit daft. Learn to be tolerant of your own
occasional mistakes and to feel gently amused by them the way you might
by the mistakes of a loved one. Learn to be warm in your dealings with
yourself.
Jennie Kermode
> Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
> get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. "Reality" has long since come to
> mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
> experience. What have we become?
I think this is one of the problems reason has in tackling
magical thinking and religious faith-based argument. People just don't
see the great joy that using reason can bring. The world reacts against
what's real. Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
As goths, we were often considered the ones who could see -
that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression. We
carved a space for ourselves where dystopian visions were welcome and
where cynicism was treated with respect. It was a good place, a place
where we could recover from the onslaughts of the world, but I think
it's made us lazy. We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
always wearing black. I think that it might need to be people like us
who discover and expose the reasons there are to celebrate the world as
it is (and, thereby, to feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our
not-so-far-away descendants, are going to have to do). We've already
gazed into the abyss so we're not held back by fear. There's beauty
there too, beyond the false glamour of the popularly constructed 'real
world'.
Peter H. Coffin
> (Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times strange guys
> have approached me and asked, as one of the first things out of their
> mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?' That is a terrible pickup
> line, people!! What in the world are you thinking?! I understand your
> desire to avoid having your nuts kicked in by a potential jealous SO,
> but trust me...if a girl has a boyfriend, she will be sure to drop a
> mention of him within the first 30 seconds of your conversation, whether
> you asked or not.)
May I make a deflection suggestion?
"hi"
"do you have a boyfriend?"
"would it matter?"
It's out of the yes/no pattern that the other is expecting, and will
require a little thinking to answer. And the answer, no matter what
it is, will tell YOU volumes about what to expect the rest of the
conversation to go, and you've instantly got some conversational ground
to explore that's both personal (and therefore interesting), and distant
(it doesn't suggest immediate action).
--
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly,
world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or
romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
Joseph Brenner
Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> writes:
> Everybody has some stink. That's why they invented cologne and soap.
I deny that I have any stink. The problem is this bacteria that's
along for the ride in my armpits.
You see, it's all about positive thinking (or more accurately, blaming
someone else).
kest
> Jennie Kermode <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 2009-10-19, Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>> The problem is that the guys who are pretty tend to be straight. I mean,
>>> when you look at it from their point of view, why would they be gay?
>> Um, because they were attracted to men?
>
> I guess, but it doesn't seem to work that way. (But then, here I'm
> imagining how I'd react if I were pretty instead of allowing them to be
> themselves.) Still, I've always had this idea that pretty men tend to
> have chips on their shoulders about their beauty--they seem downright
> embarrassed about it sometimes. Maybe I've read too many magazines.
>
So...if you were 'pretty' (whatever that means) you'd go after girls but
instead you're going after boys? Please tell me I am misunderstanding.
It can be a hard world for the attractive people as well, you know.
They're not by any means guaranteed to not get rejected by the people
they are interested in, they get envy from others, and they themselves
may need to do a lot of rejecting of others, which can be equally difficult.
> Done that, but not much help there, because, well, this is a club scene
> and people aren't necessarily that close and so don't have so much to
> say. And my *friends*--well, the ones I see on a regular
> basis--generally aren't part of the "Goth" scene (gotta put it in quotes
> here in the ATL), so they don't know who I'm interested in.
>
And I am guessing you are not having much luck finding people you're
interested in in your actual social group (you know, friends of your
*friends*)? It seems to me that if the kind of people you hang out with
are very different than the kind of people you try to pick up, this
could be part of the problem.
k
kest
> On 2009-10-25, kest <ke...@removethedamnspamtrap.nettrip.org> wrote:
>> Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times strange guys
>> have approached me and asked, as one of the first things out of their
>> mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?'
>
> It also means that if one has a girlfriend one is obliged to
> either lie or out oneself to a stranger, with the attendent risk of
> violence.
Well, my usual response is actually to rant, much as I did here, and ask
them if, really, that ever works? Although I was tempted, once a long
time ago in a laundromat, to reply with the honest truth at that time,
which was 'Yes, I have three.' That could have gone lots of ways,
though, and what I really wanted right then was to be left alone to
continue contemplating the over-complicated nature of the situation.
k
Peter H. Coffin
> Well, my usual response is actually to rant, much as I did here, and ask
> them if, really, that ever works? Although I was tempted, once a long
> time ago in a laundromat, to reply with the honest truth at that time,
> which was 'Yes, I have three.' That could have gone lots of ways,
> though, and what I really wanted right then was to be left alone to
> continue contemplating the over-complicated nature of the situation.
Watching socks shoot around in the dryer is good for that kind of
thinking...
--
Whenever you look at a beautiful woman,
always remember that somewhere, someone is tired of her.
Panurge
> So...if you were 'pretty' (whatever that means) you'd go after girls but
> instead you're going after boys? Please tell me I am misunderstanding.
OK--you're misunderstanding. In fact, maybe I'm misunderstanding, too.
That'd be understandable (I suppose).
> It can be a hard world for the attractive people as well, you know.
Heads up for *moi*, part 1.
> It seems to me that if the kind of people you hang out with
> are very different than the kind of people you try to pick up, this
> could be part of the problem.
Heads up, part 2.
OTOH, I hang out with my friends less often than I hang out with my
friendly acquaintances at the clubs, it seems. I *think* there's decent
overlap there.
Panurge
> The world reacts against what's real.
I guess. All I see is, well, "realism" and "being real". That's all
anything wants to be, it seems--well, either "dark" and "edgy" or
totally fluffy. IOW, we want to *embrace* our disappointment--because
it makes us feel "grown-up", apparently.
> Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
:-)
> We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
> always wearing black.
With all due respect, that's always been the knock on the Goth
scene--that it's not realistic, but pessimistic (and self-involved). To
be *cynical* as such is to be understood as having a perspective that's
out of balance. I still have a friend or two who think you somehow have
to be at least a bit "not right" to be involved in the scene.
> I think that it might need to be people like us
> who discover and expose the reasons there are to celebrate the world as
> it is (and, thereby, to feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our
> not-so-far-away descendants, are going to have to do).
I'm not sure what "as it is" means any more. I'd rather celebrate the
world as it can be as well as the world at its present-day best, and
beyond that make people realize that the world can be a lot more than it
is. The way we already "celebrate [*] the world as it is" can be a trap
in itself, because it keeps us from looking for a better world (seeing
as we've actively killed our desire for it as being unattainable and a
recipe for disappointment. And now we're back to "reality"). I think
this is what's behind the Obama campaign slogan "Change We Can Believe
In". IOW, not Hippie Utopia, but at least something a good deal better.
It still leaves open the question of just how much change we can
"believe in".
> We've already
> gazed into the abyss so we're not held back by fear.
OK. So what *is* holding us back?
[*] read "accept as being at least not worse"
Joseph Brenner
kest <ke...@removethedamnspamtrap.nettrip.org> writes:
> "Can I buy you a drink" is a pretty universally accepted 'I think
> you're hot' pickup line as well. The important thing is to
> approach them, like una said in some other post, like a person
> and not like an objective, 'cause people can smell that shit.
>
> (Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times
> strange guys have approached me and asked, as one of the first
> things out of their mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?'
> That is a terrible pickup line, people!! What in the world are
> you thinking?!
Hm. I dunno... I have to say it'd be a pretty weird thing for me to
say. I would've thought it's just standard practice to hang around a
bit and get an idea of whether the target has a wing-man.
On the other hand, it's honest and immediate, it sounds like someone
blurting out what they're actually thinking. This is the kind of thing
that people *tell* you you're supposed to try to do ("just be yourself").
Joseph Brenner
"Peter H. Coffin" <hel...@ninehells.com> writes:
> kest wrote:
>> (Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times strange guys
>> have approached me and asked, as one of the first things out of their
>> mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?' That is a terrible pickup
>> line, people!! What in the world are you thinking?! I understand your
>> desire to avoid having your nuts kicked in by a potential jealous SO,
>> but trust me...if a girl has a boyfriend, she will be sure to drop a
>> mention of him within the first 30 seconds of your conversation, whether
>> you asked or not.)
>
> May I make a deflection suggestion?
>
> "hi"
> "do you have a boyfriend?"
> "would it matter?"
This would make it sound like she's up for some infidelity. Unless
that's actually true, it's not a great response.
whisky-dave
"Jennie Kermode" <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrnhe8no6.5ma...@laocoon.triffid.demon.co.uk...
> On 2009-10-19, `una <una...@nettrip.org> wrote:
>> being better at it faster. There's usually a process of
>> shutting down the messages in one area only to discover
>> that they still exist in another. Once you make that
>> discovery, you'll probably want to tell yourself that
>> you suck for not realizing it sooner. Avoid that impulse.
>
> Lots of sensible stuff from 'una here. I just want to add that
> you might also find it helpful to tackle paranoia with humour.
What even when everyone is out to get you ;-)
>When you
> find yourself getting into one of those "I suck for not realising it
> sooner" loops, laugh at yourself, but with good humour, with affection.
> Don't think of yourself as an abject failure, shake your head and tell
> yourself off for being a wee bit daft. Learn to be tolerant of your own
> occasional mistakes and to feel gently amused by them the way you might
> by the mistakes of a loved one.
And then share so we all can have a laugh :-)
I almost died at the weekend after a serious case of man-flu,
all I could do was lay on the bed or sofa and suffer.
But I did learn something while taking the 'which southpark character are
you'
test via arseface. I came out as Stan Marsh.
A friend of mine came out as Butters which explains a lot being a caring
person
willing to do anything for anyone and will believe almost anything he's told
aka gullible.
He still believes that T-Mobile give him free txts, free phone calls and a
free phone,
but for some reason can't equate the monthly removal of �35-�45 from his
account
as paying for those 'free' things.
Anyway the point is sometimes you have to compare yourself with others and
perhaps
you can more easily judge where they are going right and indeed wrong in
their lives
and apply it to your own life, even if the character(s) is fictional.
I think I need to be a little more like cartman.
whisky-dave
"kest" <ke...@removethedamnspamtrap.nettrip.org> wrote in message
news:jd4fr6-...@abyss.ninehells.com...
> Jennie Kermode wrote:
>> On 2009-10-25, kest <ke...@removethedamnspamtrap.nettrip.org> wrote:
>>> Can I just take a moment to rant about the number of times strange guys
>>> have approached me and asked, as one of the first things out of their
>>> mouths after 'hi', 'do you have a boyfriend?'
>>
>> It also means that if one has a girlfriend one is obliged to
>> either lie or out oneself to a stranger, with the attendent risk of
>> violence.
>
> Well, my usual response is actually to rant, much as I did here, and ask
> them if, really, that ever works?
Would it have been better if they'd asked if they could sit with you and
watch your underwear go around and around, or would I have gotten a slap. ;)
Peter H. Coffin
That's the trick: one needs to define "infidelity" in that context...
The response is *far enough* outside the normal "yes, I do" (buzz off)
and "no, I don't" (I'm interested) to require someone to actually stop
and think.
--
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a
quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during
which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
Joseph Brenner
>> (I HATE making mistakes when playing music, and
>> that keeps me from practicing. Vicious circle, yadda yadda. I really,
>> really admire the true virtuosos, even when they're playing music I
>> don't necessarily like.)
>
> I am a perfectionist with a driving need to be RIGHT, which
> kept me from writing anything serious for decades.
> Every little mistake was a dagger. Any form of feedback was
> an anvil from the sky.
>
> Finally, I just had to say FUCK IT and start making mistakes
> on purpose just so I could get used to it. I found that even
> when I was trying to fuck things up on purpose, I was doing
> many things right despite myself. I came to the conclusion
> that fucking things up could not stop be from getting things right.
Sing it!
But you just told Panurge to get in touch with his punk side.
This is unlikely to happen.
You might think about it as embracing jazz:
"Why don't you make a mistake and do something right for once?"
-- Sun Ra
Panurge
> But you just told Panurge to get in touch with his punk side.
> This is unlikely to happen.
<chuckle> You might be surprised! ;-) Having tried this just a
couple of times, I see its value.
Cool Sun Ra quote, BTW!
Joseph Brenner
Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> writes:
> Cool Sun Ra quote, BTW!
It's from the John Szwed book. He quotes that as an example of the
kinds of things Ra would say during rehersals.
Joseph Brenner
Nyx <wayn...@gmail.com> writes:
> Yeah, taking relationship advice from una. That's smart.
Who are you going to get advice from, someone who's never had any
problems?
whisky-dave
> and b) that _because_ I have more than one relationship I would struggle
> to find the time for even a quick fuck in the nearest public toilet.
Do you know where your nearest public toilet is, I tried to find one here
and it
looks as though it's a couple of miles away at least. Doing a Google search
the top link
is mile end climbing wall, which I don't think is quite suitable.
`una
> `una wrote:
>
> > I find that I get a lot of mileage out of a smile and
> > a compliment/question.
>
> "Can I buy you a drink" is a pretty universally accepted 'I think you're
> hot' pickup line as well. The important thing is to approach them, like
> una said in some other post, like a person and not like an objective,
> 'cause people can smell that shit.
They can also smell genuine interest.
"I was hoping I would see you again," sounds MUCH different
coming from someone who is genuinely appreciative of a quality
you display than it does from someone who is just trying to get
into your pants.
I quite unintentionally started a flirtation with a hotel
desk clerk yesterday because I was genuinely happy to see
him again and made mention of it with that line. After pausing
a moment for a reaction, I got an opening to support that line
with the displayed characteristic and had a lovely conversation.
Sadly, I was too busy making use of my backstage to take
the hotel clerk up on his offer to stop by and say hi
after the show I went to.
`una - did a lot of that kind of flirting in Seattle yesterday
and got more returned interest than I had time to followup on.
Joseph Brenner
Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> writes:
> Just wanted to clarify one thing here:
>
> `una <una...@nettrip.org> wrote:
>
>> Life isn't a choice between shit and ideal.
>
> Agreed--I always got chuffed at any cultural artifact that played the
> "ideal/reality" card and showed "reality" as "effectively shit".
>
> Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
> get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. "Reality" has long since come to
> mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
> experience. What have we become?
It's certainly true that "reality" is often talked about as though it's
inherently unpleasant ("you've got to face reality", "the depressing
reality is--"), but than that doesn't mean we're *down* on reality,
exactly.
Someone taking a line like this is almost always trying to pump
themselves up and put themselves across as clear-sighted and practical.
They're also usually trying to sell something really nasty, and they're
using the fact that it's nasty as a selling point. If the medicine
tastes bad, than it's got to be good for you. This is the way people
make a case for something absolutely godawful, like bombing civilians,
imprisionment without legal process, or using torture for interrogation.
If you're opposed to any of these things then your heart is in the right
place, but obviously you're an impractical idealist that can't be taken
seriously.
However, none of this means that someone taking this rhetorical line
sincerely hates the terrible realities that they claim to be in touch
with. Their heart sings with joy at the thought of a world where they
can be in charge of the torture chamber.
Joseph Brenner
Jennie Kermode <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> writes:
> I think this is one of the problems reason has in tackling
> magical thinking and religious faith-based argument. People just don't
> see the great joy that using reason can bring. The world reacts against
> what's real. Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
It's an interesting thought... but I think you two may be talking
about two different issues here under the same label (hardly
surprising, "reality" is an over-loaded, highly charged term...).
I think the main trouble is the irrational people who don't *know* that
they're being irrational, whose reasoning skills are so weak that they
fall back on tribalism without even quite knowing that they're doing it.
Just getting these people to admit that they're out of touch with
reality would be a huge step all in itself. They're convinced that they've
got their own pipeline to The Real, and if you tell 'em they're wrong,
obviously you're not connected to the pipeline, so what do you know?
Just to pick an example:
I was doing a film night of sorts, where one of the things I showed was
an old film of San Francisco from around 1915 with a new sound track by
Beth Custer. It's a pretty simple, brilliant concept -- someone
mounted a film camera on the front of a cable car, and rode the length
of Market Street, all the way up to the Ferry building. It's a long
straight glide to the vanishing point, where the Ferry building appears
out of the distance and eventually looms over the scene. You see people
walking around, waving, crossing the street, as the camera passes horse
drawn carriages, and an occasional car weaves through it all at an
alarming speed (it's amazing they didn't just ban those things).
There was this one guy in the audience who was fascinated by this
film-- well, actually, *everyone* is, but he was fascinated for a
particular reason. He came up to me saying "You notice how no one [in
the film] is over-weight?" I agree, and comment "Yes, they do all seem
pretty energetic". He then goes off on on how back then, *everyone*
was eating organic food. This is a thought, but it's almost certainly
a *wrong* thought-- as I understand it, no studies have been able to
find a clear health benefit to eating "organic" food. That doesn't
mean there aren't good reasons for doing it (better for the
environment, tastes better), but it just doesn't improve your health
that much...
I tried to explain that I thought the reason the people in the film
seem healthier is that it was back before the car addiction really
kicked in-- people walked more, so they're in better shape for walking.
(And of course, there's selection bias: the ones who couldn't walk
very well weren't out where the camera could see them -- it might be a
point for car technology if it keeps "shut-ins" from being shut-out).
There was no way this was going to sink in with this classic Flake from
Santa Cruz. He knows it to be so, his yoga teacher told him so.
> As goths, we were often considered the ones who could see -
> that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
> resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression. We
> carved a space for ourselves where dystopian visions were welcome and
> where cynicism was treated with respect. It was a good place, a place
> where we could recover from the onslaughts of the world, but I think
> it's made us lazy. We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
> always wearing black.
Yes, I guess I've had similar thoughts... I've been afraid that some
day I'm going to turn into someone preaching political action to a
bunch of cheerleaders in black.
> I think that it might need to be people like us who discover and expose
> the reasons there are to celebrate the world as it is (and, thereby, to
> feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our not-so-far-away
> descendants, are going to have to do). We've already gazed into the
> abyss so we're not held back by fear. There's beauty there too, beyond
> the false glamour of the popularly constructed 'real world'.
That's the power of negative thinking, all right.
One of my comments at my brother's memorial was that it seemed to me he
was uniquely equipped to deal with dying of cancer. An optimist
would be thrown by that sort of thing, but to a pessimist it's no
surprise. I even used the line "So maybe there are some advantages to
gazing into the abyss."
whisky-dave
"Joseph Brenner" <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:871vknks...@kzsu.stanford.edu...
>
> Jennie Kermode <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>> I think this is one of the problems reason has in tackling
>> magical thinking and religious faith-based argument. People just don't
>> see the great joy that using reason can bring. The world reacts against
>> what's real. Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
>
> It's an interesting thought... but I think you two may be talking
> about two different issues here under the same label (hardly
> surprising, "reality" is an over-loaded, highly charged term...).
>
> I think the main trouble is the irrational people who don't *know* that
> they're being irrational,
But who is labelling them irrational. ;-)
>whose reasoning skills are so weak that they
> fall back on tribalism without even quite knowing that they're doing it.
> Just getting these people to admit that they're out of touch with
> reality would be a huge step all in itself. They're convinced that
> they've
> got their own pipeline to The Real, and if you tell 'em they're wrong,
> obviously you're not connected to the pipeline, so what do you know?
I heard a shamen speak these wise words.
"A man stands ion teh one side of a river bank and he says the river flows
from right to left.
But teh man standing on the other side states the river flows from left to
right.
Hour later they revese their decision and tide comes in rather than going
out."
Who is right.
> Just to pick an example:
>
> I was doing a film night of sorts, where one of the things I showed was
> an old film of San Francisco from around 1915 with a new sound track by
> Beth Custer. It's a pretty simple, brilliant concept -- someone
> mounted a film camera on the front of a cable car, and rode the length
> of Market Street, all the way up to the Ferry building. It's a long
> straight glide to the vanishing point, where the Ferry building appears
> out of the distance and eventually looms over the scene. You see people
> walking around, waving, crossing the street, as the camera passes horse
> drawn carriages, and an occasional car weaves through it all at an
> alarming speed (it's amazing they didn't just ban those things).
>
> There was this one guy in the audience who was fascinated by this
> film-- well, actually, *everyone* is, but he was fascinated for a
> particular reason. He came up to me saying "You notice how no one [in
> the film] is over-weight?" I agree, and comment "Yes, they do all seem
> pretty energetic". He then goes off on on how back then, *everyone*
> was eating organic food. This is a thought, but it's almost certainly
> a *wrong* thought--
No it's not as pretty much all food then wasn;t processed in the way it is
today
and very few chemicals were used, and today that is how we define organic
i.e grown naturaly, without added chemicals .
> as I understand it, no studies have been able to
> find a clear health benefit to eating "organic" food.
That's mostly true by studies done by food manufacturers or studies done
financed by them.
>That doesn't
> mean there aren't good reasons for doing it (better for the
> environment, tastes better), but it just doesn't improve your health
> that much...
It';s not that organic stuff improves your health it's just that what's
added
and taken away, or artificially added like salt isn;t good for your health.
It may be OK for a study lasting a month but for year in year out we do see
the effects
they have.
> I tried to explain that I thought the reason the people in the film
> seem healthier is that it was back before the car addiction really
> kicked in-- people walked more, so they're in better shape for walking.
Of course excersise heklps, I'd bet thatpeolpe watching TV were healtheir
before the
remote contol was invented too. ;-)
> (And of course, there's selection bias: the ones who couldn't walk
> very well weren't out where the camera could see them -- it might be a
> point for car technology if it keeps "shut-ins" from being shut-out).
>
> There was no way this was going to sink in with this classic Flake from
> Santa Cruz. He knows it to be so, his yoga teacher told him so.
I'd believe the yoga teach in this instance.
>> As goths, we were often considered the ones who could see -
>> that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
>> resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression. We
>> carved a space for ourselves where dystopian visions were welcome and
>> where cynicism was treated with respect. It was a good place, a place
>> where we could recover from the onslaughts of the world, but I think
>> it's made us lazy. We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
>> always wearing black.
>
> Yes, I guess I've had similar thoughts... I've been afraid that some
> day I'm going to turn into someone preaching political action to a
> bunch of cheerleaders in black.
Nothing wrong with cheerleaders in black you know.
>
>> I think that it might need to be people like us who discover and expose
>> the reasons there are to celebrate the world as it is (and, thereby, to
>> feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our not-so-far-away
>> descendants, are going to have to do). We've already gazed into the
>> abyss so we're not held back by fear. There's beauty there too, beyond
>> the false glamour of the popularly constructed 'real world'.
>
> That's the power of negative thinking, all right.
Are we just viewing in black 'n' white or monochrome here.
> One of my comments at my brother's memorial was that it seemed to me he
> was uniquely equipped to deal with dying of cancer. An optimist
> would be thrown by that sort of thing, but to a pessimist it's no
> surprise. I even used the line "So maybe there are some advantages to
> gazing into the abyss."
Well you know that it exists and where it is, which might help avoid it.
>
whisky-dave
"`una" <una...@nettrip.org> wrote in message
news:ml8lr6-...@abyss.ninehells.com...
> I quite unintentionally started a flirtation with a hotel
> desk clerk yesterday because I was genuinely happy to see
> him again and made mention of it with that line. After pausing
> a moment for a reaction, I got an opening to support that line
> with the displayed characteristic and had a lovely conversation.
>
> Sadly, I was too busy making use of my backstage to take
> the hotel clerk up
Why did I first read backstage as backpassage, when it's not even friday....
yet
Nyx
> Panurge <panu...@mindspring.com> writes:
> > Just wanted to clarify one thing here:
>
> > `una <una...@nettrip.org> wrote:
>
> >> Life isn't a choice between shit and ideal.
>
> > Agreed--I always got chuffed at any cultural artifact that played the
> > "ideal/reality" card and showed "reality" as "effectively shit".
>
> > Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
> > get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. "Reality" has long since come to
> > mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
> > experience. What have we become?
>
> It's certainly true that "reality" is often talked about as though it's
> inherently unpleasant ("you've got to face reality", "the depressing
> reality is--"), but than that doesn't mean we're *down* on reality,
> exactly.
Reality is something to be overcome.
Nyx
Joseph Brenner
"whisky-dave" <whisk...@final.front.ear> writes:
> "Joseph Brenner" <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> Jennie Kermode <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>> I think this is one of the problems reason has in tackling
>>> magical thinking and religious faith-based argument. People just don't
>>> see the great joy that using reason can bring. The world reacts against
>>> what's real. Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
>>
>> It's an interesting thought... but I think you two may be talking
>> about two different issues here under the same label (hardly
>> surprising, "reality" is an over-loaded, highly charged term...).
>>
>> I think the main trouble is the irrational people who don't *know* that
>> they're being irrational,
>
> But who is labelling them irrational. ;-)
>> whose reasoning skills are so weak that they fall back on tribalism
>> without even quite knowing that they're doing it. Just getting
>> these people to admit that they're out of touch with reality would
>> be a huge step all in itself. They're convinced that they've got
>> their own pipeline to The Real, and if you tell 'em they're wrong,
>> obviously you're not connected to the pipeline, so what do you know?
> I heard a shamen speak these wise words. "A man stands ion teh one
> side of a river bank and he says the river flows from right to left.
> But teh man standing on the other side states the river flows from
> left to right. Hour later they revese their decision and tide comes
> in rather than going out." Who is right.
In this story, both of them are wrong, they're both idiots who need to
define their terminology better.
When you hear someone intone "there are many truths", you're either listening
to a snake oil salesman, or someone who's been confused by a snake oil salesman.
>> Just to pick an example:
>>
>> I was doing a film night of sorts, where one of the things I showed was
>> an old film of San Francisco from around 1915 with a new sound track by
>> Beth Custer. It's a pretty simple, brilliant concept -- someone
>> mounted a film camera on the front of a cable car, and rode the length
>> of Market Street, all the way up to the Ferry building. It's a long
>> straight glide to the vanishing point, where the Ferry building appears
>> out of the distance and eventually looms over the scene. You see people
>> walking around, waving, crossing the street, as the camera passes horse
>> drawn carriages, and an occasional car weaves through it all at an
>> alarming speed (it's amazing they didn't just ban those things).
>>
>> There was this one guy in the audience who was fascinated by this
>> film-- well, actually, *everyone* is, but he was fascinated for a
>> particular reason. He came up to me saying "You notice how no one [in
>> the film] is over-weight?" I agree, and comment "Yes, they do all seem
>> pretty energetic". He then goes off on on how back then, *everyone*
>> was eating organic food. This is a thought, but it's almost certainly
>> a *wrong* thought--
> No it's not as pretty much all food then wasn;t processed in the way
> it is today and very few chemicals were used, and today that is how we
> define organic i.e grown naturaly, without added chemicals .
That they were eating food that is more or less organic isn't in dispute.
That it's the one significant difference between their lives and ours
is what's clearly wrong.
If it turned out that I am wrong about it's irrelevance and it we
learned that reduction in organic food is *a* significant difference,
then even then it would still be wrong to latch on to it as the
one-and-only difference.
>> as I understand it, no studies have been able to
>> find a clear health benefit to eating "organic" food.
> That's mostly true by studies done by food manufacturers or studies done
> financed by them.
And *you* have just fallen back on tribalism.
If the studies showed that organic food was wonderful, you wouldn't
be wondering who funded them.
>> That doesn't mean there aren't good reasons for doing it (better
>> for the environment, tastes better), but it just doesn't improve
>> your health that much...
> It's not that organic stuff improves your health it's just that
> what's added and taken away, or artificially added like salt isn't
> good for your health.
As I understand it, salt doesn't matter if you don't have a
specifically indicated medical condition, and I have my doubts
that they were eating a low sodium diet in San Francisco in 1915.
Try "high fructose corn syryp" and you might have something...
but it wouldn't matter if the corn were raised "organically"
or not.
> It may be OK for a study lasting a month but for year in year out we
> do see the effects they have.
Yeah, well it could be I've been taken by some bogus studies -- living
with uncertainty is part of the reality game, after all.
But (a) you're admitting that the effect is bounded (b) it's one of
the symptoms of psuedo-science: the effect always receeds into a
corner that's hard to measure.
>> I tried to explain that I thought the reason the people in the film
>> seem healthier is that it was back before the car addiction really
>> kicked in-- people walked more, so they're in better shape for walking.
> Of course excersise heklps,
No shit it helps. The effect is so strong it tends to dominate all
others.
We constantly obsess about diet, but if you had to choose between
good diet and good exercise, you should pick the exercise.
(Though doing both is even better, of course.)
ags...@yahoo.com
> NO ONE is interested in me--well, unless I'm not interested in them,
> natch... :-/ I never get any signals, and sometimes when I think I am
> I'm not. No one looks at me, even when I give them the opportunity.
> (Well, occasionally they do, but they don't *seem* to be looking at me
> *that* way IYKWIM.)
>
> I know acting desperate won't help, but I am. I don't come here with my
> problems, but here I am now, appealing to a group of people who don't
> even know me well enough to answer my question. But I guess it can't
> hurt to ask whoever I can.
>
> Am I fated to have to give up my heart's desire to get companionship or
> a music career or, hell, *anything* in life? How could a relationship
> based on that be "real" in any way? Am I just gonna have to resign
> myself to being my own boyfriend and running MIDI sequences?
>
> I mean, I know there's some people for whom just nothing they want is
> ever gonna happen, but this is just ridiculous. It can't *all* be the
> world's fault. :-/ What's wrong with me??
>
> --
> "He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
> --Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
>
> FWIW: www.myspace.com/PanurgeATL
We had this discussion 5 years ago today where I stated that you must
be socially retarded. I guess this post reaffirms my stance.
whisky-dave
>
> "whisky-dave" <whisk...@final.front.ear> writes:
>
>> I heard a shamen speak these wise words. "A man stands ion teh one
>> side of a river bank and he says the river flows from right to left.
>> But teh man standing on the other side states the river flows from
>> left to right. Hour later they revese their decision and tide comes
>> in rather than going out." Who is right.
>
> In this story, both of them are wrong,
No they are both right from thier current perspective.
>they're both idiots who need to
> define their terminology better.
Well there was actually 3 of them one was standing on a bridge and all he
saw was the river running towards him or away from him,
but he got stressed out about it and jumpted off the bridge and drowned.
>
> When you hear someone intone "there are many truths", you're either
> listening
> to a snake oil salesman, or someone who's been confused by a snake oil
> salesman.
We don;t have snake oil salesman in the UK we have politicians instead.
>>> Just to pick an example:
>>>
>>> I was doing a film night of sorts, where one of the things I showed was
>>> an old film of San Francisco from around 1915 with a new sound track by
>>> Beth Custer. It's a pretty simple, brilliant concept -- someone
>>> mounted a film camera on the front of a cable car, and rode the length
>>> of Market Street, all the way up to the Ferry building. It's a long
>>> straight glide to the vanishing point, where the Ferry building appears
>>> out of the distance and eventually looms over the scene. You see people
>>> walking around, waving, crossing the street, as the camera passes horse
>>> drawn carriages, and an occasional car weaves through it all at an
>>> alarming speed (it's amazing they didn't just ban those things).
>>>
>>> There was this one guy in the audience who was fascinated by this
>>> film-- well, actually, *everyone* is, but he was fascinated for a
>>> particular reason. He came up to me saying "You notice how no one [in
>>> the film] is over-weight?" I agree, and comment "Yes, they do all seem
>>> pretty energetic". He then goes off on on how back then, *everyone*
>>> was eating organic food. This is a thought, but it's almost certainly
>>> a *wrong* thought--
>
>> No it's not as pretty much all food then wasn;t processed in the way
>> it is today and very few chemicals were used, and today that is how we
>> define organic i.e grown naturaly, without added chemicals .
>
> That they were eating food that is more or less organic isn't in dispute.
But they didn't label it organic.
> That it's the one significant difference between their lives and ours
> is what's clearly wrong.
Or is it that they didn't feed their kids on McDs and other fast foods from
morning to night ?
> If it turned out that I am wrong about it's irrelevance and it we
> learned that reduction in organic food is *a* significant difference,
> then even then it would still be wrong to latch on to it as the
> one-and-only difference.
Who said it was the only difference, they didn;t have TV either did they.
>>> as I understand it, no studies have been able to
>>> find a clear health benefit to eating "organic" food.
>
>> That's mostly true by studies done by food manufacturers or studies done
>> financed by them.
>
> And *you* have just fallen back on tribalism.
No, but I can see through some 'statements'
> If the studies showed that organic food was wonderful, you wouldn't
> be wondering who funded them.
I would as I was aware of them first claiming that organic food is better
for you.
But in reality it's what's added to food that can make it bad for you such
as added salt,
sugar and not forgetting pesticides.
>>> That doesn't mean there aren't good reasons for doing it (better
>>> for the environment, tastes better), but it just doesn't improve
>>> your health that much...
>
>> It's not that organic stuff improves your health it's just that
>> what's added and taken away, or artificially added like salt isn't
>> good for your health.
>
> As I understand it, salt doesn't matter if you don't have a
> specifically indicated medical condition,
Not true because salt increases blood pressure amongst other things,
we do need salt about ~6g per day.
> and I have my doubts
> that they were eating a low sodium diet in San Francisco in 1915.
Why have you changed it to sodium you do know the difference don;t you ?
Well the biggest difference is so manufactures can say only 1 gram of
sodium.
Which to get the REAL salt content you have to multiply by 3
So 3 grams of salt, but 1g of sodium looks much better on the label,
why else would they quote sodium unless to deceive the ignorant of the
amount of salt
the product contains ?
> Try "high fructose corn syryp" and you might have something...
> but it wouldn't matter if the corn were raised "organically"
> or not.
That would depend on what fetalizers they use to grow the corn and whether
or not those
chemicals were removed before processing.
But then again high fructose corn syrup wasn't really available in 1915.
>> It may be OK for a study lasting a month but for year in year out we
>> do see the effects they have.
>
> Yeah, well it could be I've been taken by some bogus studies -- living
> with uncertainty is part of the reality game, after all.
True but it shouldn't be that way.
Why add monosodium glutamate to food ?
Why add vitamins to foods, they din't do that in 1915 did they.
> But (a) you're admitting that the effect is bounded (b) it's one of
> the symptoms of psuedo-science: the effect always receeds into a
> corner that's hard to measure.
True but I don;t like things pushed in corner so I don't see them.
>
>>> I tried to explain that I thought the reason the people in the film
>>> seem healthier is that it was back before the car addiction really
>>> kicked in-- people walked more, so they're in better shape for walking.
>
>> Of course excersise heklps,
>
> No shit it helps. The effect is so strong it tends to dominate all
> others.
it would be interesting if the drive in MacDs/pizza-place were 5 miles away
and the 'patrons'
had to walk there and back, but they'd probably camp outside anyway.
>
> We constantly obsess about diet, but if you had to choose between
> good diet and good exercise, you should pick the exercise.
But I wouldn't same as most people, and few peolpe really understand good
diet.
>
> (Though doing both is even better, of course.)
Better for who, certainly not me :-)
Satori
> We had this discussion 5 years ago today where I stated that you must
> be socially retarded. I guess this post reaffirms my stance.
As opposed to a middle aged man who continues to be an internet troll,
something most 18 year old boys have already gotten over? Would you be
the pot or the kettle?
moonglow minnow
> "Joseph Brenner" <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote in message
> news:87bpjph...@kzsu.stanford.edu...
>> That it's the one significant difference between their lives and ours
>> is what's clearly wrong.
>
> Or is it that they didn't feed their kids on McDs and other fast foods from
> morning to night ?
Just home-made fatty foods, often pan-fried in lard and bacon grease.
>> As I understand it, salt doesn't matter if you don't have a
>> specifically indicated medical condition,
>
> Not true because salt increases blood pressure amongst other things,
> we do need salt about ~6g per day.
Actually, salt only increases blood pressure in sodium-sensitive
individuals. Most people can have all the salt they want as long as they
get enough water to balance it out.
> Why have you changed it to sodium you do know the difference don;t you ?
> Well the biggest difference is so manufactures can say only 1 gram of
> sodium.
> Which to get the REAL salt content you have to multiply by 3
> So 3 grams of salt, but 1g of sodium looks much better on the label,
> why else would they quote sodium unless to deceive the ignorant of the
> amount of salt
> the product contains ?
Actually, it's because sodium is what the body uses to maintain fluid
balance in the body. The important part of what the salt contains is the
sodium - salt is just the delivery method.
> True but it shouldn't be that way.
> Why add monosodium glutamate to food ?
> Why add vitamins to foods, they din't do that in 1915 did they.
MSG gets added to foods because it provides a savory taste that can be
hard to get otherwise. Vitamins get added to foods because in, say,
1915, there were a lot of people suffering from vitamin deficiencies.
The easiest way to remedy the situation, for public health, is to add
vitamins to food.
>> We constantly obsess about diet, but if you had to choose between
>> good diet and good exercise, you should pick the exercise.
>
> But I wouldn't same as most people, and few peolpe really understand good
> diet.
The fact that most people don't choose exercise is a good part of the
reason why so many of us are unhealthy. As far as good diet, with the
exception of specific health conditions, it's really much more simple
than most people make it out to be.
Maeve >^..^<
--
http://moonglowminnow.wordpress.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/minnow/
Peter H. Coffin
> whisky-dave wrote:
>> True but it shouldn't be that way.
>> Why add monosodium glutamate to food ?
>> Why add vitamins to foods, they din't do that in 1915 did they.
>
> MSG gets added to foods because it provides a savory taste that can be
> hard to get otherwise. Vitamins get added to foods because in, say,
> 1915, there were a lot of people suffering from vitamin deficiencies.
> The easiest way to remedy the situation, for public health, is to add
> vitamins to food.
It bears mentioning that the reason that those deficiencies happen less
often now than in 1915 is *primarily* due to those exact addititives.
what things people eat as primary diet regionally haven't changed a
whole lot. Take the iodine out of table salt and people in the centers
of continents will still get goiters, because they still won't be eating
as much ocean food as people on the coasts will. (In general, anyway.
Someone who was very consciencious about getting a balanced diet across
all requirements probably CAN manage it without food supplements, with
the will, wherewithal and attention, but that ain't how most folks will
manage things. Better to just keep throwing vitamin A & D into the milk
that goes into the Kraft Singles that go on the burgers...)
>>> We constantly obsess about diet, but if you had to choose between
>>> good diet and good exercise, you should pick the exercise.
>>
>> But I wouldn't same as most people, and few peolpe really understand good
>> diet.
>
> The fact that most people don't choose exercise is a good part of the
> reason why so many of us are unhealthy. As far as good diet, with the
> exception of specific health conditions, it's really much more simple
> than most people make it out to be.
And the discussion swings back around to "what does 'healthy' actually
mean?" Excercise doesn't fix vitamin deficiencies, treadmills won't
prevent broken hips, and more people suffer heart attacks *while*
exercising than sitting on the couch.
--
Science is like sex:
sometimes something useful comes out, but that's not why we're doing it.
-- Richard Feynman
Dark Phoenix
"Peter H. Coffin" <hel...@ninehells.com> wrote in message
news:slrnhem99i....@abyss.ninehells.com...
> , treadmills won't
> prevent broken hips,
Actually, treadmills-if used for something more than hanging clothing on-
*can* help prevent broken hips. Weight bearing exercise has been shown to
improve bone density (if there is adequate calcium, magnesium and vit D
present), which translates into fewer broken bones.
--
Laurie Brown, Dark Phoenix
dark_p...@netw.com
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/103910/laurie_brown.html
"To destroy the Western tradition of independent thought, it is not
necessary to burn books. All we have to do is leave them unread for a couple
of generations."
--Robert Maynard Hutchens.
Elder
"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk says...
> On 2009-10-21, Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
> > get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. "Reality" has long since come to
> > mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
> > experience. What have we become?
>
> magical thinking and religious faith-based argument. People just don't
> see the great joy that using reason can bring. The world reacts against
> what's real. Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
> that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
> resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression. We
> carved a space for ourselves where dystopian visions were welcome and
> where cynicism was treated with respect. It was a good place, a place
> where we could recover from the onslaughts of the world, but I think
> it's made us lazy. We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
> it is (and, thereby, to feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our
> not-so-far-away descendants, are going to have to do). We've already
> gazed into the abyss so we're not held back by fear. There's beauty
> there too, beyond the false glamour of the popularly constructed 'real
> world'.
>
>
>
That is absolutley beautiful.
--
Carl Robson
Get cashback on your purchases
Topcashback http://www.TopCashBack.co.uk/skraggy_uk/ref/index.htm
Greasypalm http://www.greasypalm.co.uk/r/?l=1006553
kest
> On the other hand, it's honest and immediate, it sounds like someone
> blurting out what they're actually thinking. This is the kind of thing
> that people *tell* you you're supposed to try to do ("just be yourself").
>
Well, yeah, but when what you are is a sleazeball, you should work on
that first, you know?
k
Panurge
> On the other hand, it's honest and immediate, it sounds like someone
> blurting out what they're actually thinking. This is the kind of thing
> that people *tell* you you're supposed to try to do ("just be yourself").
HAHAHAHAHAH--oops, sorry.
What I suspect people really mean without admitting it is "Actually
remake yourself into *just this exact, particular kind of person* and
then *just be yourself!*" :-/
whisky-dave
"moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:7l0lifF...@mid.individual.net...
> whisky-dave wrote:
>> "Joseph Brenner" <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote in message
>> news:87bpjph...@kzsu.stanford.edu...
>
>>> That it's the one significant difference between their lives and ours
>>> is what's clearly wrong.
>>
>> Or is it that they didn't feed their kids on McDs and other fast foods
>> from
>> morning to night ?
>
> Just home-made fatty foods, often pan-fried in lard and bacon grease.
and rule the world :-)
>>> As I understand it, salt doesn't matter if you don't have a
>>> specifically indicated medical condition,
>>
>> Not true because salt increases blood pressure amongst other things,
>> we do need salt about ~6g per day.
>
> Actually, salt only increases blood pressure in sodium-sensitive
> individuals. Most people can have all the salt they want as long as they
> get enough water to balance it out.
I'm not to sure that's true as the cells need a balance of sodium &
potassium
disrupt this balance too far and you can get heart problems.
The problem with modern day salt intake is that you can't tell from the
tatse
just how much salt you're eating, I can tell when I put it on chips/fries
but not when it's already added.
moonglow minnow
> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:7l0lifF...@mid.individual.net...
>> Actually, salt only increases blood pressure in sodium-sensitive
>> individuals. Most people can have all the salt they want as long as they
>> get enough water to balance it out.
>
> I'm not to sure that's true as the cells need a balance of sodium &
> potassium
> disrupt this balance too far and you can get heart problems.
Right. That's what happens when you get either too much salt and not
enough water or too much water and not enough salt. In most people, the
right balance of water flushes out excess salt via the kidneys.
> The problem with modern day salt intake is that you can't tell from the
> tatse
> just how much salt you're eating, I can tell when I put it on chips/fries
> but not when it's already added.
So if you have a problem with salt intake (or various other conditions),
you should prepare your own food from raw, minimally-processed source
ingredients. It takes more time than microwaving something from a
packet, or going to the local fast food eatery, but you have more
control over what you're actually eating.
Peter H. Coffin
> So if you have a problem with salt intake (or various other conditions),
> you should prepare your own food from raw, minimally-processed source
> ingredients. It takes more time than microwaving something from a
> packet, or going to the local fast food eatery, but you have more
> control over what you're actually eating.
Not a hell of a lot more time... Okay, an order of magnitude maybe,
but small in absolute terms. The longest amount of time for most of
the meals I make is waiting for the rice to cook. (Tonight's dinner is
shrimp in red curry sauce over basmati rice, escarole with tomato salad,
and burgandy cherry frozen custard. I didn't make the custard. The whole
meal is going to be about 55 minutes of time start to finish, and
there'll be cocktail-time in there still too.)
--
It seems that we were audited recently, and the auditors found a certain
'f' word in the comments of a configuration file, and deemed that this
is a 'security risk'.
-- Paul Fenwick
Endymion
Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 2009-10-21, Panurge <panu...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> > Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
> > get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. "Reality" has long since come to
> > mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
> > experience. What have we become?
>
> I think this is one of the problems reason has in tackling
> magical thinking and religious faith-based argument. People just don't
> see the great joy that using reason can bring. The world reacts against
> what's real. Reality needs better PR. I'm working on it.
The Eye of Man a little narrow orb closd up & dark
Scarcely beholding the great light conversing with the Void
The Ear, a little shell in small volutions shutting out
All melodies & comprehending only Discord and Harmony
The Tongue a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys
A little sound it utters & its cries are faintly heard
Then brings forth Moral Virtue the cruel Virgin Babylon
Can such an Eye judge of the stars? & looking thro its tubes
Measure the sunny rays that point their spears on Udanadan
Can such an Ear filld with the vapours of the yawning pit.
Judge of the pure melodious harp struck by a hand divine?
You throw the sand against the wind
And the wind blows it back again.
Translation: I can't believe I'm seeing a gaggle of *goths*, for
fuck's sake, even one who lives in a house called Kadath, extolling
the superior virtues of reason and the reality it creates for itself.
Where the hell is Everett when we need him most?
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
I see your reality and raise you 300 micrograms of decent acid, or a
12 oz. bottle of extra-strength tussin.
I call your reality and put my hand on the table: the collected works
of H.P. Lovecraft, and the Bible - with a Blake in the hole.
> As goths, we were often considered the ones who could see -
> that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
> resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression.
Can you really call seeing the glass half empty a superior awareness
just because it is true that it's half empty? Is the person who sees
it half full mistaken?
The point isn't to dispute the existence of objective fact, but then,
you aren't talking about objective facts, your talking about a world-
view you build on them which seems more real to you than does a world-
view of others that you don't share.
And not seeing the reality you see doesn't necessarily mean ignorance
of the underlying facts or lack of imagination with respect to their
significance.
Do you know any accountants or corporate lawyers on an (emotionally)
intimate basis? How about regular conforming churchgoers? How about
cheerful optimistic accountants who are regular churchgoers?
I'm not knocking your world-view; I happen to share much of it, and
find the same frustration sometimes when dealing with people who don't
get it. What I don't share is the opinion that it is inherently
superior or closer to reality, or that people who see the world
similarly are more perceptive, objective, or truthful. A lot of the
goth world-view has always been an excuse for plain old teen angst,
narcissism, and self-pity, and that's just the most basic level of
error.
Also, I think Joseph is correct in saying this is two different
issues. Seeing the world as it truly is can't really be compared to
investigating the natural causes of a physical phenomenon. And some
parts of the world aren't reacting against what's real, they're
reacting against a claim that one limited definition of "real"
describes the universe. Richard Dawkins is every bit as wrong as the
creationists - he's just wrong about different things. He's rendered
himself incapable of seeing heaven in a wild flower, and that's not
just wrong, it's pathological.)
> We
> carved a space for ourselves where dystopian visions were welcome and
> where cynicism was treated with respect. It was a good place, a place
> where we could recover from the onslaughts of the world, but I think
> it's made us lazy. We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
> always wearing black. I think that it might need to be people like us
> who discover and expose the reasons there are to celebrate the world as
> it is (and, thereby, to feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our
> not-so-far-away descendants, are going to have to do). We've already
> gazed into the abyss so we're not held back by fear. There's beauty
> there too, beyond the false glamour of the popularly constructed 'real
> world'.
You say you perceive the need for people like us to discover and
expose the reasons there are to celebrate the world as it is. But is
that because people not like us can't really see those things as
clearly, or because you can't buy it coming from them?
Anyway, goth may have the right idea there, but most of the goths I've
known haven't the slightest clue about it.
- Endymion
Yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
whisky-dave
"moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
> whisky-dave wrote:
>> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:7l0lifF...@mid.individual.net...
>
>>> Actually, salt only increases blood pressure in sodium-sensitive
>>> individuals. Most people can have all the salt they want as long as they
>>> get enough water to balance it out.
>>
>> I'm not to sure that's true as the cells need a balance of sodium &
>> potassium
>> disrupt this balance too far and you can get heart problems.
>
> Right. That's what happens when you get either too much salt and not
> enough water or too much water and not enough salt. In most people, the
> right balance of water flushes out excess salt via the kidneys.
I often wondered whether there is a minimum salt intake required
but I would guess that would be over quite a long period of time before
it was noticeable.
>
>> The problem with modern day salt intake is that you can't tell from the
>> tatse
>> just how much salt you're eating, I can tell when I put it on chips/fries
>> but not when it's already added.
>
> So if you have a problem with salt intake (or various other conditions),
and how would one know that ?
Remmebr we're comparing this with 1915 and a different life style
.
> you should prepare your own food from raw, minimally-processed source
> ingredients.
Raw is more difficult to get now even in supermarkets where most fruit is
covered
in a glaze or wax. But of course in the days of 1915 buying food was quite
different
especially for men, as we didn't for the most part.
It's virtually impossible for me to get truly fresh fruit and veg, unless I
go to the market,
the trouble with that is they pack up at 3:30pm, earlier sometimes and I'm
at work until 5pm.
Then it doesn't look anywhere near as 'good' as the supermarket produce that
I can
buy up to and past midnight. Now if I had a wife which would have been
likely in the
1915 era, she'd be out buying raw and cooking/cleaning rather than spending
time
on social networking and shopping for shoes/boots.
We no longer kill our own food or grow our own food generally speaking even
outside
of the major cities and towns and inside well there's lack of space.
Then again we all have the perception that we'll live longer and healthier
today than we
did in 1915 where does that idea come from and why I wonder.
> It takes more time than microwaving something from a packet, or going to
> the local fast food eatery, but you have more control over what you're
> actually eating.
But how do you know that eating what's commonly available today
is better or worse that what was available nearly 100 years ago.
whisky-dave
"Endymion" <disinte...@embarqmail.com> wrote in message
news:1afb4308-c2df-42e7...@l2g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> As goths, we were often considered the ones who could see -
> that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
> resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression.
}Can you really call seeing the glass half empty a superior awareness
}just because it is true that it's half empty? Is the person who sees
}it half full mistaken?
That's as easy as the chicken 'n' egg question.
If it is my round then the glass is half full and no action is required,
if it is someone else's round my glass is half empty and it's time to
rectify that sad state of affairs :-)
}Anyway, goth may have the right idea there, but most of the goths I've
}known haven't the slightest clue about it.
I'm glad I'm not a Goth ;-)
moonglow minnow
> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
>> Right. That's what happens when you get either too much salt and not
>> enough water or too much water and not enough salt. In most people, the
>> right balance of water flushes out excess salt via the kidneys.
>
> I often wondered whether there is a minimum salt intake required
> but I would guess that would be over quite a long period of time before
> it was noticeable.
IIRC, our own Jennie has had difficulties with not having enough salt
intake. This is unlikely to be a problem if you regularly eat processed
foods, of course.
>> So if you have a problem with salt intake (or various other conditions),
>
> and how would one know that ?
> Remmebr we're comparing this with 1915 and a different life style
In 1915, one wouldn't know, and would happily go about eating salt pork
until keeling over from a heart attack, stroke, or brain aneurism.
Today, if you see a doctor regularly, they usually catch these conditions.
> Then again we all have the perception that we'll live longer and healthier
> today than we
> did in 1915 where does that idea come from and why I wonder.
It has less to do with diet, and more to do with modern medical care.
Pneumonia, an impacted wisdom tooth, or an infected wound is far less
likely to kill than it was in 1915. We also have preventative care such
as vaccinations that reduce illness and death from diseases that were
once quite common.
>> It takes more time than microwaving something from a packet, or going to
>> the local fast food eatery, but you have more control over what you're
>> actually eating.
>
> But how do you know that eating what's commonly available today
> is better or worse that what was available nearly 100 years ago.
Depending one where one is, and what choices one makes, it may be
better, worse, or equivalent. Regardless, it's not the most important
factor in maintaining good health.
Peter H. Coffin
> On Oct 25, 9:30�am, Jennie Kermode <"Jennie
> Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 2009-10-21, Panurge <panu...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Just say the word "reality" to a gathered room and watch the energy just
>> > get sucked right out, I'll bet ya. �"Reality" has long since come to
>> > mean "disappointment", as if that's naturally the default human
>> > experience. �What have we become?
>>
>
>> � � � � � �As goths, we were often considered the ones who could see -
>> that is, the ones who always seemed to be aware of the world as it was,
>> resulting in various kinds of social difficulty and depression.
>
> Can you really call seeing the glass half empty a superior awareness
> just because it is true that it's half empty? Is the person who sees
> it half full mistaken?
IMHO, it's been less about half-empty/half-full than the inadequacy of
having the wrong-sized glass for the occasion, and the social rejection
stemming from the faux pas.
> The point isn't to dispute the existence of objective fact, but then,
> you aren't talking about objective facts, your talking about a world-
> view you build on them which seems more real to you than does a world-
> view of others that you don't share.
>
> And not seeing the reality you see doesn't necessarily mean ignorance
> of the underlying facts or lack of imagination with respect to their
> significance.
>
> Do you know any accountants or corporate lawyers on an (emotionally)
> intimate basis?
Well enough to know that most of regard their profession mostly as a job
or a role, and usually one they're happy to set aside when nobody's
paying for it to be done.
> How about regular conforming churchgoers?
Lots. Weird flavors of them too, this being the stronghold of the WELS.
> How about
> cheerful optimistic accountants who are regular churchgoers?
Not a one. Your milage may vary, of course.
> I'm not knocking your world-view; I happen to share much of it, and
> find the same frustration sometimes when dealing with people who don't
> get it. What I don't share is the opinion that it is inherently
> superior or closer to reality, or that people who see the world
> similarly are more perceptive, objective, or truthful. A lot of the
> goth world-view has always been an excuse for plain old teen angst,
> narcissism, and self-pity, and that's just the most basic level of
> error.
>
> Also, I think Joseph is correct in saying this is two different
> issues. Seeing the world as it truly is can't really be compared to
> investigating the natural causes of a physical phenomenon. And some
> parts of the world aren't reacting against what's real, they're
> reacting against a claim that one limited definition of "real"
> describes the universe. Richard Dawkins is every bit as wrong as the
> creationists - he's just wrong about different things. He's rendered
> himself incapable of seeing heaven in a wild flower, and that's not
> just wrong, it's pathological.)
Only if the only way something can be wonderful is if Heaven is in it.
A lack of God's hand in the creation of a wild-flower takes nothing away
from the flower.
>> We
>> carved a space for ourselves where dystopian visions were welcome and
>> where cynicism was treated with respect. It was a good place, a place
>> where we could recover from the onslaughts of the world, but I think
>> it's made us lazy. We have, if you like, become too comfortable with
>> always wearing black. I think that it might need to be people like us
>> who discover and expose the reasons there are to celebrate the world as
>> it is (and, thereby, to feel motivated to fight for it, which we, or our
>> not-so-far-away descendants, are going to have to do). We've already
>> gazed into the abyss so we're not held back by fear. There's beauty
>> there too, beyond the false glamour of the popularly constructed 'real
>> world'.
>
> You say you perceive the need for people like us to discover and
> expose the reasons there are to celebrate the world as it is. But is
> that because people not like us can't really see those things as
> clearly, or because you can't buy it coming from them?
>
> Anyway, goth may have the right idea there, but most of the goths I've
> known haven't the slightest clue about it.
That's because goths are people, and most people are idiots.
--
"Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food
groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat."
-Alex Levine
Peter H. Coffin
> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:7l8k78F...@mid.individual.net...
>
>> whisky-dave wrote:
>>
>>> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
>>> news:7l0lifF...@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>>> Actually, salt only increases blood pressure in sodium-sensitive
>>>> individuals. Most people can have all the salt they want as long as
>>>> they get enough water to balance it out.
>>>
>>> I'm not to sure that's true as the cells need a balance of sodium
>>> & potassium disrupt this balance too far and you can get heart
>>> problems.
>>
>> Right. That's what happens when you get either too much salt and not
>> enough water or too much water and not enough salt. In most people,
>> the right balance of water flushes out excess salt via the kidneys.
>
> I often wondered whether there is a minimum salt intake required but I
> would guess that would be over quite a long period of time before it
> was noticeable.
Nope. Over the long term, it's less noticable. Short term, it leads to
dizziness, nausea, vomiting, kidney failure, convulsions, and coma.
Usually, it shows up after several hours of exercise combined with
inadequate or lack of hydration.
--
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to
double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
--Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord
Peter H. Coffin
> whisky-dave wrote:
>
>> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:7l8k78F...@mid.individual.net...
>
>>> Right. That's what happens when you get either too much salt and not
>>> enough water or too much water and not enough salt. In most people,
>>> the right balance of water flushes out excess salt via the kidneys.
>>
>> I often wondered whether there is a minimum salt intake required but
>> I would guess that would be over quite a long period of time before
>> it was noticeable.
>
> IIRC, our own Jennie has had difficulties with not having enough
> salt intake. This is unlikely to be a problem if you regularly eat
> processed foods, of course.
>
>>> So if you have a problem with salt intake (or various other
>>> conditions),
>>
>> and how would one know that ? Remmebr we're comparing this with 1915
>> and a different life style
>
> In 1915, one wouldn't know, and would happily go about eating salt
> pork until keeling over from a heart attack, stroke, or brain
> aneurism. Today, if you see a doctor regularly, they usually catch
> these conditions.
Uh, no. They'll tell you about risk factors and correllations, but the
actual amount of preventative effect that changing things based on those
correllations PREVENTS anything is really difficult to prove. The best
one can really do that has any merit is to do large studies, over long
periods, and assign your results on all-cause mortality. If you really
want to PREVENT those things, don't get old. The idea that correllation
equals causation and eliminating correllated factors prevents things
from happening plays right back into that magical thinking we were
talking about elsethread.
>> Then again we all have the perception that we'll live longer and healthier
>> today than we
>> did in 1915 where does that idea come from and why I wonder.
>
> It has less to do with diet, and more to do with modern medical care.
> Pneumonia, an impacted wisdom tooth, or an infected wound is far less
> likely to kill than it was in 1915. We also have preventative care such
> as vaccinations that reduce illness and death from diseases that were
> once quite common.
At least until people end up fearing vaccination more than the diseases,
and the over-use of antibacterials in soaps, dishcloths, toys,
children's furniture and *carpeting* breed up a whole slew a
cleverly-resistant bacteria... You wanna kill germs? Use bleach and
radiation (Cobalt or UV). If you can bleach or irradiate it, leave it
alone.
>>> It takes more time than microwaving something from a packet, or
>>> going to the local fast food eatery, but you have more control over
>>> what you're actually eating.
>>
>> But how do you know that eating what's commonly available today is
>> better or worse that what was available nearly 100 years ago.
>
> Depending one where one is, and what choices one makes, it may be
> better, worse, or equivalent. Regardless, it's not the most important
> factor in maintaining good health.
Maintaing good health largely comes down to don't do stuff that makes
you sick, and making sure you've got the capacity to survive being sick
for a while. Make sure you're strong, so getting weaker doesn't kill
you. Make sure you're not starving so that being incapacitated for a
while doesn't kill you. Make sure your liver and kidneys work. Don't get
old, or at least, never admit it to yourself. Challenge yourself, even
if it's video games or crossword puzzles instead of passively accepting
entertainment. Live.
--
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously
agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished.
It might actually be important.
Endymion
wrote:
> In 1915, one wouldn't know, and would happily go about eating salt pork
> until keeling over from a heart attack, stroke, or brain aneurism.
Most people in 1915 (or 1913, before the war *really* screwed things
up) had such serious nutritional deficiencies that an excess of salt
wouldn't have been noticed even if they knew to look for it.
> Today, if you see a doctor regularly, they usually catch these conditions.
>
> > Then again we all have the perception that we'll live longer and healthier
> > today than we
> > did in 1915 where does that idea come from and why I wonder.
>
> It has less to do with diet, and more to do with modern medical care.
No, it's diet, too. To the extent people ate healthier, more well-
balanced diets before modern foods came along,[1] industrialization
and urbanization did away with that for the masses. The typical poor
city dweller's diet in 1913 was absolutely terrible, and thirty years
before that it was even worse. Many rural areas weren't much better;
pellagra was endemic in the southern US and many parts of Europe for
centuries. I forget the number, but when the UK started recruiting a
mass army for the first time in 1915 a huge percentage, something like
25% or 33% of recruits, had to be rejected because of poor health,
mostly due to dietary deficiencies, and many of the ones accepted had
very poor physiques. And sailors and prisoners, you don't even want to
think about. It was those sorts of issues that led to the discovery of
vitamins starting around the late 19th century.
> Depending one where one is, and what choices one makes, it may be
> better, worse, or equivalent. Regardless, it's not the most important
> factor in maintaining good health.
While that's true, it's true in part because modern western diets,
even those of poor people, are so much more nutritious than what poor
and working-class people ate 100 years ago. Very few people today have
diets entirely lacking in ascorbic acid or niacin; if they did, the
resulting health problems would be widespread and severe.
[1] which was rarely the case in agricultural societies; much of the
world has always lived on mass quantities of starches, whether from
white rice or nutritionally poor but prolific cultivars of the potato.
- Endymion
~Fianna
Peter H. Coffin wrote:
> That's because goths are people, and most people are idiots.
Ding! We have a winner.
~Fi, hell is other people.
whisky-dave
"moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
> whisky-dave wrote:
>> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:7l8k78F...@mid.individual.net...
>
>>> Right. That's what happens when you get either too much salt and not
>>> enough water or too much water and not enough salt. In most people, the
>>> right balance of water flushes out excess salt via the kidneys.
>>
>> I often wondered whether there is a minimum salt intake required
>> but I would guess that would be over quite a long period of time before
>> it was noticeable.
>
> IIRC, our own Jennie has had difficulties with not having enough salt
> intake. This is unlikely to be a problem if you regularly eat processed
> foods, of course.
So was that a problem in 1915 when we didn't; really have processed foods,
and are you saying that not eating processed food might give you a salt
deficiency.
>>> So if you have a problem with salt intake (or various other conditions),
>>
>> and how would one know that ?
>> Remmebr we're comparing this with 1915 and a different life style
>
> In 1915, one wouldn't know, and would happily go about eating salt pork
> until keeling over from a heart attack, stroke, or brain aneurism.
So there is a reason not to eat too much salt.
But I don;t think most of us know how much is too much unless we go by
what's
said on products 'made by man'
whisky-dave
> On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 13:14:46 -0000, whisky-dave wrote:
>
>> I often wondered whether there is a minimum salt intake required but I
>> would guess that would be over quite a long period of time before it
>> was noticeable.
>
> Nope. Over the long term, it's less noticable. Short term, it leads to
> dizziness, nausea, vomiting, kidney failure, convulsions, and coma.
> Usually, it shows up after several hours of exercise
I should be OK then,
>combined with inadequate or lack of hydration.
maybe I should add ice to my whisky then ;-)
whisky-dave
"~Fianna" <ka...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:Xc3Im.39$%j4...@newsfe18.iad...
>
> Peter H. Coffin wrote:
>
>> That's because goths are people, and most people are idiots.
>
> Ding! We have a winner.
I'm not a people :-)
moonglow minnow
> "moonglow minnow" <tahee...@charter.net.invalid> wrote in message
>> IIRC, our own Jennie has had difficulties with not having enough salt
>> intake. This is unlikely to be a problem if you regularly eat processed
>> foods, of course.
>
> So was that a problem in 1915 when we didn't; really have processed foods,
> and are you saying that not eating processed food might give you a salt
> deficiency.
In 1915 food was regularly preserved using salt, so no, sodium
deficiency wasn't any more of a problem then than it is now. Not eating
processed foods *and* not adding salt to them might lead to a sodium
deficiency, but again, it's a rare issue.
>> In 1915, one wouldn't know, and would happily go about eating salt pork
>> until keeling over from a heart attack, stroke, or brain aneurism.
>
> So there is a reason not to eat too much salt.
> But I don;t think most of us know how much is too much unless we go by
> what's
> said on products 'made by man'
If you're sodium sensitive, which most people aren't, there's a reason
not to eat too much salt. Otherwise, there's simply a good reason to
stay well hydrated. Which interestingly enough requires salt intake
relative to the amount of water ingested, especially if one is sweating
a lot or otherwise losing electrolytes.
~Fianna
"whisky-dave" <whisk...@final.front.ear> wrote in message
news:hcs0bt$qda$1@qmul...
That's almost too easy...
~Fi, when did I become nice?